


Embers and Ashes

by AllenbysEyes



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Abusive Parents, Aged-Up Character(s), Altering the Past, Antisemitism, F/M, Flashbacks, Friendship/Love, Love makes you do crazy things like end the world, Past Relationship(s), Two ships for the price of one!, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-02-23 10:11:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 45,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13187913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllenbysEyes/pseuds/AllenbysEyes
Summary: As her father's Senate campaign implodes, Pacifica Northwest returns to Gravity Falls, hoping to escape the scandal and seek comfort in her old hometown. Instead she's confronted with her unresolved feelings towards Dipper, embers from their brief, intense relationship two summers ago...and, just maybe, a chance to change the past. Past Dipcifica, current Wendip, all angst.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my latest Gravity Falls story! I'd planned to wait until New Years' before writing a new one, but I couldn't resist making a head start. Reading "The Arrogance of Power" before this will help, but hopefully not be essential to enjoying this story. Please feel free to favorite, kudos and review!

**July 17th, 2018**

The night Preston Northwest withdrew from the Oregon Senate race, laid low by revelations about an historical cover-up and financial misdeeds, his daughter posted a poem on her blog. They weren't the most eloquent or original verses ever typed, but they did capture perfectly the thoughts of an eighteen year old woman who'd spent a lifetime wrestling with her family's monstrous legacy and conceited present, broadcasting to the world her desire to make a clean break.

_To Dad:_

_I loved you_

_I admired you_

_I followed you_

_I feared you_

_I hated you_

_I resented you_

_Through it all_

_You were still my father_

_Then you did the unthinkable_

_You betrayed your friends_

_You destroyed your family_

_You broke me_

_\- Paz_

It was liked and loved and shared 1,000 times in that first night, and thousands more as Preston's campaign entered free fall. The empathy of an entire state - an entire country - who'd viewed Pacifica Elyse Northwest merely as the perfect, pretty daughter of a public figure turned on full bcloisteredlast, plumbing her brief poem for depth and meaning and _personality_  heretofore hidden from the public.

The media swarmed the family's estate in Salem, looking for a word with the ex-candidate, microphones and cameras at the ready, leveled like siege guns at the mansion. But Preston ignored them; he holed up in his mansion with his wife, his lawyers and a few trusted advisers, waiting for indictments to drop, discussing how they might avoid jail time, whether they could cut a bargain with prosecutors or possibly, just maybe, beat this thing with enough money and arm-twisting legal histrionics.

Despite Preston's outward calm, it was clear that their old life was over. The servants were already leaving, most of them signing lucrative deals with tabloids for the Inside Story of Preston's Downfall, when they weren't fielding subpoenas from prosecutors and DA's. The family's art work and treasures were being sold, along with their more elegant furniture and accouterments. Even the items detailing the Northwests' sordid past, so carefully in Preston's Hate Room, weren't safe; Preston's attorneys filed an injunction preventing investigators from seizing them, which a judge upheld. But only until Preston received an actual indictment; then 150 years of misery and shame would become public, demolishing anything remaining of the family's name.

Pacifica felt bad for her mother, who had borne decades of condescension and abuse from Preston with a rigid smile and painfully-swallowed emotions, had striven to meet his unflinching sense of propriety and perfection, only to watch her life destroyed at his hand. She barely kept things together, spending time in her garden and among her books, with alcohol Pacifica had only glimpsed and pills she'd merely guessed at helping her stay afloat. Always with the same smile, which looked increasingly grim and ghoulish as their situation deteriorated.

Pacifica might even miss the creature comforts, opportunities and friends that came with her family's privilege. She loved her fancy, fashionable wardrobe; she loved having entree to Oregon's nicest parties and schools and social circles; she even had a few real friends who weren't just hangers on or sycophants. Who knew if they'd still be around when the dust settled? She hoped they'd still see her as Pacifica; but since she hadn't heard from them since the scandal broke, she feared they'd now mark her as a  _Northwest_.

But after watching her father try to murder some of her oldest friends, all over some stupid historical documents nobody cared about, Pacifica couldn't even  _pretend_  to care what happened to him. Father or not, Preston now meant nothing to her. He was a monster, a criminal who deserved everything he got - and then some.

The only question for Pacifica was: how could  _she_  escape?

* * *

Her opportunity came ten days later.

Preston had spent most of the day, as usual, consulting with his attorneys and personal secretary in their office, poring over every details of the latest legal developments. Even when he did venture out of the office - and that was increasingly rare - he barely acknowledged Pacifica beyond an inclined chin or perfunctory nod, maybe a cursory word of greeting at dinner, feeling that she had betrayed him to her "common" friends from Gravity Falls. He only went outside to play tennis, in a courtyard that grew rapidly worn and dilapidated without anyone to take care of it. Anywhere else he risked being photographed or mocked or otherwise humiliated, and that he could not abide.

That day, Pacifica tried playing tennis with her mother, ignoring the leaves and puddles of water covering the court. Pacifica was fairly good at the game, well-practiced from playing doubles with her Salem friends at school; her mom wasn't a slouch at it, either, and could usually beat her daughter when she put her mind to it. In her current state, though, it was no contest. Priscilla barely bothered to return Pacifica's serves, hardly chased after any of her daughter's balls. Against such a zombie-like opponent, Pacifica couldn't possibly enjoy herself.

"Mom, are you all right?" Pacifica asked after an especially one-sided contest. "You only returned two serves that whole set. Usually you blast them back down my throat!"

"Guess I'm just not feeling up to it," Priscilla said, sighing as she regarded the racket in her hand. "Maybe some other time, Pacifica."

Pacifica walked around the net and clasped her mom's shoulder. As she drew close, she saw so much pain in her mother's eyes that her heart sank.

"Mom...have you been drinking again?" She wanted to slap herself for asking, but couldn't help it.

"Not today," Priscilla said. Pacifica discreetly smelled her breath; no odor of alcohol. She felt so relieved that she didn't ask about pills.

"You know, Mom..." Pacifica took a deep breath, having rehearsed this speech a hundred times in her mind over the past week. "This whole situation is hard on all of us. So you're not alone, you know? You don't need to go through it alone...You can talk to me, or...get help from someone else..."

"I'm fine, Pacifica," Priscilla snapped, her voice curt and angry that she'd even suggest otherwise.

"No Mom, you're not," Pacifica insisted, trying to look her mom in the eye. "If you keep this up...I'm afraid what's gonna happen to you."

Priscilla let down her guard just long enough for a pang of emotion, a twinge of sadness to overcome her face. Then she snapped back into Stepford Wife mode.

"Nothing will happen to  **me**  that won't happen to all of us," she insisted, standing straight up, suddenly animated with resentment. "Your father's enemies are out to get him. And God knows he's made a lot of them over the years. People jealous of his success, people who hate that he's more honest than anyone they've ever met...People who can't stand to see a man succeed through his own hard work."

Pacifica felt like she'd heard this speech a million times; she listened to it numbly, her face blankly sad.

"You of all people, who've gotten so much from your father, should be standing by him! Yet you're the first to jump ship at the slightest sign of trouble. I can't believe I raised such an ungrateful child."

Pacifica dropped her racket, her face flushed with hurt. She felt bad for her mom, knew that she was saying this to convince herself more than anything. But her words still wounded. And Pacifica no longer felt she could handle it.

"Mom, I'm sorry you feel that way," Pacifica said, trying to keep her voice even. "But...Just because we're Northwests doesn't mean we need to be defined by it. Be defined by  **him** , especially. Pacifica and Priscilla Northwest are two different people from Preston. And everyone should know it!"

"If we weren't Northwests," Priscilla insisted, "no one would know who we were." Her voice slipped into a quiet murmur, and her eyes wandered towards the weeds creeping around the edges of the tennis court.

"Someone's got to clean up this courtyard," she muttered, starting to rock in place, hands still clasping the racket. "Should do that once I finish the garden."

Pacifica made one last move to comfort her mother, then decided against it. Every time she tried to break through, her mom retreated into her shell - or worse, started barking out defenses of Preston. Pacifica still wanted to help, still felt awful that her mother could be reduced to... _this_. But she started feeling tired of trying.

"Okay, I'm gonna go inside," she said, trying not to cry. Without looking back at her mom, Pacifica slunk back inside, leaving her mother standing in the courtyard, the wind gently rustling her clothes and hair.

* * *

Pacifica retreated to her bedroom and laid back on her bed. She wanted to cry, but just felt emptiness within her; all she could do was sigh and allow thoughts of despair to swim around her head.

Trapped as she often felt in her home, she never really thought about self-harm, let alone suicide. But she did wonder what other choice she had at this point. She couldn't remain with her family forever, but she couldn't leave either. School didn't start for another month-and-a-half. And her Salem friends still weren't returning her calls and her emails, even the ones who'd liked her blog post the week before.

"...Another business partner's suing me." She heard her father's voice down the hall. Apparently Priscilla had come inside. "That ungrateful bastard Bill Burroughs, says I bilked him on a $15,000 loan! Well, I'm talking to our accountant at 4:00 today and we'll set him straight. Problem enough with the government without all the wolves attacking us."

Pacifica pulled out her phone and hit the first name she could: Chris Dirksen, her boyfriend.

"Hello?"

"Hey Chris, it's Pacifica," she said, keeping one ear turned towards her parents' conversation. Though it was mostly Preston complaining about different business partners while Priscilla listened.

"Uhh...what's up?" Pacifica's heart sank, detecting the tentative, even hostile tenor in Chris's voice.

"Jacob Steinfeld, too?" Priscilla called. "Of course he'd talk to you and not me about it!"

"Things are going...kinda crazy here, as you might expect," Pacifica said. "I just...I needed someone friendly to talk to."

"...Oh, Steinfeld's one of _them_ , what do you expect?"

"Don't talk like that." Pacifica was surprised to hear her mother interject so strongly.

"Excuse me?"

"This isn't the 1940's, Preston, you can't refer to Jews as  _them_. We had enough problems with that when Pacifica was dating that Pines boy..."

"And who do you think it was who sold us out in the first place?"

Pacifica was so caught up in this disturbing conversation that she barely heard Chris's response. "...Please don't call me any more, Pacifica. I don't associate with criminals."

"Wait, Chris..." But the phone went dead. And Pacifica listened in horror as her parents' argument escalated.

"What other slurs do you want to drop into this conversation, Preston?" Priscilla shouted. "My God, learn what century you're in!"

"I don't have anything against anyone," he lied, "unless they give me cause."

"It's always someone: the Jews or the media or the unions or your business partners or your daughter or  _your wife_. After all we've tolerated from you. It's never  **you** , is it Preston? Nothing wrong with the world is your fault."

Pacifica listened raptly, terrified and fascinated at what response that bit of defiance might bring. Instead, Preston remained deathly silent; after what seemed like hours, Pacifica heard him stomp back to his study and slam the door.

Pacifica waited a long, agonizing moment, then crept out in the hallway. She saw her mother, again staring into space, and felt her heart break. Without saying a word, she rushed forward and hugged her mom, who let out a quiet sob.

"I'm so sorry," Priscilla whispered. "I try...I try..." But she couldn't form the words, and just sputtered until Pacifica shushed her.

"Pacifica," she said finally. "Promise me one thing."

Pacifica looked hopefully at her mom.

"That you'll get out of here," Priscilla continued. "And don't look back."

Pacifica reacted in shock.

"I'm not leaving you alone with him," she said. "I...I couldn't."

Priscilla's face twisted back into its trademark smile. Lately it had been looking forlorn, insincere, but now it looked frankly terrifying - a grotesque parody of a smile, an Impressionist nightmare come to life.

"Pacifica, I'm already used up," she said. "I've spent my whole adult life suffering  _that man_. Guess it's my fate."

"No it isn't..." Pacifica began. But her mother shushed her.

"My life is already good as over," Priscilla said - a thought that made Pacifica feel awful, since her mother was only 41 - barely middle-aged, not old by  _any_  standards. "But you...You're so young. You don't deserve to get caught in this, and you still have time to make your own life."

"But...where can I go? What can I do?" Pacifica wailed. "My friends...I don't even know if I  _have_  friends any more."

Priscilla considered this, then rolled through some options. A name she'd mentioned in passing during her fight with Preston came to mind.

"What about Dipper Pines?"

Pacifica's heart skipped a beat as she heard that name.

"Mom...You know that's over, right?" She said incredulously. "I mean, he's dating that Corduroy girl now..."

"Well, he and his sister - Bella, right? or something? - they're still your friends. And I know they've helped you in the past when we've..."

Pacifica thought about it. True, she'd made her peace with the Pines twins during their last meeting. But who knows how long that would last? Or whether it translated into anything deeper? She'd always thought Dipper and Mabel wouldn't judge her for her family, that they'd look at her as Pacifica, and for the first few years they knew each other it held true.

But that was before two summers ago, when everything became horrible and wonderful at the same time. And the thought of conjuring that summer's memories filled her with dread.

 **But** , her mom was right. Her life was in free fall and she needed someone to turn to.

She gave her mother another long, affectionate hug. Then she went back to her room, picked up her phone and scrolled up her contacts list. Her mind raced, her palms sweated as the familiar name appeared on her screen; she felt like a sleepwalker, typing a quick, deceptively casual message as if by rote:

_Hey Dipper - it's Pacifica! I'll be visiting Gravity Falls again this weekend - wanna hang out?_

What did she have to lose?


	2. Chapter 2

**July 27th**

Pacifica couldn't have picked a better weekend to send her text. Because Dipper was, for once, looking for something to do.

True, he had another date lined up with Wendy, with the chance for another night at her place. She had found a really terrible-sounding science fiction movie ( _Your Face, It's Melting!_ ) in some dark corner of the internet (God knows how she came across all these terrible movies!), with a promise of pizza or subs to go along with it. And she not-too-subtly hinted to Dipper that there might be even more exciting things in store afterwards.

The rest of the weekend, though, Wendy would be hanging out with Robbie and Tambry. To her boyfriend's chagrin, she didn't seem to want company. "It's not often I get to see those guys," Wendy explained, though part of him wondered whether she had explained that they were dating now...And it's not like he was still that close with Robbie, whom he'd rarely more than tolerated over the years.

Still, it stung him more than he'd expected. Maybe their relationship was still too fresh for even casual separations to seem casual. Maybe he really was that paranoid and jealous. Either way, even with the prospect of another night with Wendy, it made him feel resentful.

Nor could Dipper's twin accommodate him. For Charlie, presumably as recompense for their prolonged impeachment vacation, had offered Mabel the weekend of her dreams.

"They're staging a production of  _Boeing Boeing_  up in Portland this weekend!" Mabel gushed, hopping up and down as she talked. "Charlie got a bonus this week, so he got  _front-row seats_! I can't believe they were available...apparently Charlie knows some people in the theater and got them for  free! Either way, we have a theatrical weekend ahead...and since he didn't spend all his money on tickets, maybe some shopping too? Portland's such an awesome city!"

"That's great, Mabel," Dipper said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. "Between Charlie getting killed and you getting shot, you guys have both earned it."

"You bet we have!" Mabel chirped. Then she noticed her brother's downcast expression. "Of course, it would be even better if you could come along..."

"It's all right, sis," Dipper insisted. "You guys have fun. I'm sure I'll find something to do."

Missing Mabel for a weekend would be one thing...though he wasn't spending as much time with her as he'd like for the Mystery Twins' last childhood summer. Unfortunately, Grunkle Stan didn't seem like he'd be much help, either.

"I keep seeing this piece of shit lately," Stan said, waving a printout around. "Some putzhead claims he's unearthed a document proving the Founding Fathers hated Jews and laid out a plan for disfranchising them! Not that phony Ben Franklin thing, either. I've gotta get to the bottom of this."

"Great! Maybe I can..." Dipper started. But Stan waved him off.

"You kids have done enough history for a lifetime," Stan grumbled, entered his pass code into the vending machine. "Besides, this is more _my_  kind of thing. Leave it to me."

Dipper groaned and shook his head, baffled that Stan would investigate a mystery without him. After all this, he wondered how his Grunkle could still keep things from him - especially things he could help with.

"Hey Soos, do you have anything going on this weekend?" Dipper asked the handyman as he came into the Shack, wearing his Mr. Mystery outfit.

"Sure, dude!" Soos enthused. "Melody and I are gonna do some shopping up at the mall, but we should be available for a movie or whatever."

Melody entered the room. "Hey, Dipper! Who's going to a movie?"

"Poor Dip's all alone this weekend," Soos explained. "Needs someone to hang out with. I said maybe we could do something tomorrow night after shopping."

"Sure, that would be cool!" Melody agreed. "I've been so busy this summer that I've barely seen you kids. Me and Soos were gonna watch  _The English Patient_..."

"Oh...wait, seriously?" Dipper asked. "That movie they made fun of on  _Seinfeld_?"

"Not just  _Seinfeld_  dude, it's  _real_ ," Soos said in amazement. "Actually, we've watched it twice before. Kinda slow and mushy, but it's a good date movie."

"One of my favorites," Melody agreed. "Ralph Fiennes is dreamy."

"Wait a minute...I thought your favorite was  _Love Actually_ ," Soos said.

"I said  _one_  of my favorites. That doesn't exclude all others."

"There was also that time you said  _Guardians of the Galaxy_  was your favorite..."

"I have a  **lot**  of favorites."

"But yeah, you're welcome to join us, dude," Soos said, steering the conversation back to Dipper. "I mean, you liked that  _Lost City of Z_  thing we watched the other day, you'd probably think this one was okay."

Dipper looked back and forth at them, both beaming expectantly. As much as Dipper appreciated the offer, he didn't want to interrupt anyone else's romantic plans.

"Nah, that's cool," Dipper said. "Thanks, though."

"You sure?" Melody asked. "I mean, we could pick another movie, if that's the problem. I bought Soos the latest  _Terminator_  for his birthday..."

"I don't wanna get in the way of anything," Dipper said. "But thanks."

"No problem," Soos said. "Sorry, dude, maybe we can hang out Sunday after we're done with church. I'm sure those mystery creatures don't observe the Sabbath...except maybe the gnomes, they have some kinda weird religion of their own, right?"

Dipper went up to his room and sighed, burying his head in his pillow. He wished he'd discovered some mystery that might interest him, but he'd been so caught up in his last two missions that nothing came to mind. He leafed through his journal, looking for mysteries from last summer that he hadn't finished yet...

* * *

"Dipper, I'm going to be out of town again this weekend," Ford said through his cell phone. "The Snallygaster's reared its ugly, serpentine head in Maryland again and I want to meet with a friend in Seattle about it before traveling all the way out east."

"Oh...I'm sorry to hear that."

"There _is_  something you could do for me while I'm away," Ford offered. "It's kinda first grade stuff, but it could still be helpful."

"Hey, at this point I'd be happy for some kindergarten stuff. Lay it on me."

"There have been a large number of foxfire sightings out in the woods over the past week. For  _obvious_  reasons, I haven't been able to check into them yet."

Dipper racked his brain for thoughts about foxfire. "Do you mean will o' the wisps, or whatever they're called? Those weird lights out in the woods at night?"

"Exactly. Or spook lights, ghost lights, jack o'lanterns...They're not exactly a new phenomenon, but I've only known one or two instances of them in Oregon over the past few years. It's not a regular occurrence like the ones in Missouri or North Carolina."

"What do you know about them? I mean, the specific cases you're investigated."

"The local paper had some stories about it this morning. Three residents out in the woods saw weird orange-and-green lights this past week. Two just saw the lights and weren't able to track the source. The third, a man named Tom Burgoyne, tried tracking down the source of the light...This is the weird part. He remembers getting close to the spook light, saw a bright green flash, then woke up hours later with no memory of what happened."

"Wow, that's...Any chance it was an alien encounter, or...?"

"That's what puzzles me. I talked to Mr. Burgoyne earlier today, he didn't remember enough to be helpful. Maybe aliens, maybe a dimensional rift...maybe some anomaly that got through the time patch. Of course, in folklore a lot of these things are supposed to be ghosts or faeries.

"A lot of these cases are natural phenomena, as I'm sure you know," Ford continued. "They're either bio-luminescent fungi or swamp gas or something along those lines. That was my first thought here, the first two cases sounded pretty typical to me. But the third story was peculiar enough to want me to learn more."

Dipper snapped to attention. "That sounds great, Great Uncle Ford! I mean, I was looking for a mystery to keep me busy...Something more, you know, my speed."

"Hopefully it's nothing," Ford said. "I mean...I don't  _hope_  it's nothing. Let me rephrase. I hope it's something  _interesting_ , but nothing dangerous. I don't want you to get in any kind of danger without anyone to help you out. You said Mabel and Wendy will be away this weekend?"

"Yeah."

"That's unfortunate. But you're eighteen, I'm sure you can take care of yourself at this point. You know how to be careful and not to walk into any situations that will get you in trouble."

"Hey, caution is my middle name," Dipper laughed. "Just observe and report, I guess?"

"That would be best," Ford agreed. "Get as close as you can without putting yourself in danger. Would be best if you had a partner or two with you, but I trust you."

"Thanks, Great Uncle Ford," Dipper said, happy that he now had  _some_  weekend plan, even if it turned out to be nothing. "I'll do my best."

* * *

"Man, you're going on a mystery hunt without me?" Wendy teased Dipper. "Lame! At least it sounds like it's just glowing rocks or whatever, I can miss that."

"Not glowing rocks, not usually," Dipper said. "They're usually lights that float and bob through the air."

"Oh...yeah, I know what you mean."

"You've seen them?" Dipper asked.

"Of course!" Wendy said. "I won't say 'all the time,' but when you go out in the deep woods as often as we do, you'll find 'em a lot. Turn up near swamps and ponds and stuff in particular. Never was able to figure out what was going on...the light vanished or floated away before I could spot what was causing it."

"You don't remember any weird experiences?" Dipper asked.

"Weird? By our standards, not really," Wendy said, then caught herself. "Well, maybe the one time...when I was like fourteen, I remember going out into the woods just before dark with one of my brothers and seeing the lights coming over a ridge. We froze, not sure what they were. There were three blobs of light in front of us, two vanished right away. The third though...started coming at us. It was just drifting like a balloon."

"What did you do?"

"My brother took off and ran.  _Of course_. I stood my ground so I could see what it was. The light just floated up to me, floated directly over my head...then disappeared into nothing. Literally. Like, I blinked and it was gone."

"Did you have any burn marks, any missing time or anything like that?"

"Don't think so," Wendy said, trying to remember. "I remember it seemed a lot darker when the light disappeared than when they first showed up, but...I guess that makes sense. No lights, no light. I didn't think anything of it."

"That's so weird," Dipper said. "Of course, we just traveled through time to save the world, so..."

"...It's not _that_  weird!" Wendy laughed, slipping her arm around Dipper. "Now, I dunno about you, Dip, but I'm ready to watch some faces melt. And you know what that calls for?"

"Popcorn?"

"Pizza! Nice, melty pizza."

Dipper stared incredulously at Wendy.

"Come on man," she said deadpan, "we can pretend we're zombies eating their faces."

"That's so gross!" Dipper blanched. "How do you even...?"

"Guess that ruined the mood," Wendy laughed, striking Dipper's head with a pillow. "Maybe we can just order some subs or something."

Dipper felt more intrigued by Wendy's story about the foxfire than any lame movie, or any subs for that matter. But the evening moved on. He almost seemed to go through the motions as the movie unspooled, as they munched their sandwiches while heckling the terrible acting and nauseating effects, starting to game plan his foxfire hunt for the following day...

Until the movie ended, the TV clicked off, and Wendy planted a long, lingering kiss on his neck, her right hand reaching for his fly. And his thoughts of scientific investigation momentarily dissolved...

* * *

After Wendy repeated the same joyful experience as the previous weekend ("We'll do the real thing soon Dip, I promise," she said as she washed her hands), Dipper lay in bed thinking. The first time, he'd fallen asleep almost instantly afterwards; this time, there was too much on his mind. He barely noticed as Wendy slipped into bed beside him, pulling the covers around her neck.

"What's wrong, Dip?" she said.

"Nothing's wrong," he said. "I'm just...thinking."

"About your little light show?" Wendy said distractedly. "There'll be plenty of time for that this weekend, man."

"Well, a little," Dipper said. "But, I mean, I guess I'm thinking about us."

Wendy frowned and turned towards him. "Dip, seriously? You wait until  _after_  I jerk you off to say shit like that?"

"Yeah, Wendy, I know, typical guy thing," Dipper grumbled, anticipating Wendy's complaint. "It's not that, I mean I'm fine with our...arrangement, I guess. You know sex isn't really...I'm not sure how good or comfortable I'd be doing the real thing anyway...It's just..."

Now Wendy's frustration faded to concern. "What?"

"Maybe...I'm okay with you spending time with Robbie and Tambry," Dipper started, hesitating in fear of Wendy's response. "It's just...I dunno, maybe you could have invited me along. Maybe you could have at least told me about it."

"Sounds to me like you aren't  _that_  okay with it," Wendy scolded. "Besides, I  _did_  tell you about it. Last week. I'm not just springing it on you now."

"You didn't tell me you'd be gone the whole weekend."

"Dude, are we really gonna do this  _now_?" Wendy sat up. "We  _had_  this talk, man. Remember dinner with Mabel and Charlie? You can't get jealous any time I talk to a guy or hang out with someone who isn't you. This relationship won't work if you're gonna act that way."

"It's  _really_  not that," Dipper insisted, none-too-convincingly. "I thought about it, and...why wouldn't you invite me along when Robbie and Tambry are a couple? Like, maybe I'm just getting paranoid and that thing that I always do, but maybe I thought...Like, you haven't told them about us? Or maybe...maybe you don't  _want_  them to know."

"Dude," Wendy said, "gimme a little credit." But her expression softened as she thought about what he said, rolling onto her back. Because deep down, she knew he wasn't  _entirely_  wrong.

"But...Yeah, maybe you're right," she said after a long, tense moment, staring at the ceiling. "I mean, it's not weird for you and me, but...I don't know how it will be for them, you know? You're still that little tag-along kid to Robbie and Tambry...and I'm sure Robbie's memories of you aren't entirely positive."

"That's an understatement," Dipper murmured.

"So yeah, maybe I want to spend time with my friends and just my friends," Wendy continued. "And yeah, maybe I wanna ease them into the idea. Maybe it's not the kinda thing I wanna talk about via text message, or just show up holding hands after seeing them for the first time in years."

"I mean...would that be so horrible?" Dipper asked, more severe than he intended. He saw Wendy's face flash into a scowl...more at herself, it seemed, than at Dipper.

"I'm sorry, Dip, I didn't mean it that way," Wendy said, nervously running her hands through her hair. "It's just...You gotta understand. I know you and Mabel think of me as like, this cool, mature older girl who knows everything, but...My relationship history isn't that great. I mean, my last boyfriend betrayed me and left me in the clutches of fucking Preston Northwest.  _That_  didn't turn out so hot. Thank God for Mabel. So..."

"That wasn't your fault," Dipper said gently. "He was a jackass and you didn't realize it until you'd been going out for awhile."

"I mean, I figure I kinda knew who he was when we started dating," Wendy admitted. "But I'm attracted to a certain kinda guy, sometimes. Dating someone like you who's nice and insecure is...a nice change."

And she turned her head and smiled, and clasped Dipper's hand in hers. And they leaned in and kissed each other quick.

"Still, Dip...You  _can't_  be clingy. Trust me, that's not healthy and it won't make either of us happy. But I'll think about what you said, I promise. And I promise next time they're in town, they'll be cool about it."

"I'm sorry," Dipper muttered. "I know you've got your own friends, and I should respect that. It's just...I haven't really had any relationships, and I just wanna be careful about..."

"Just let things go as they go, man," Wendy assured him. "But I appreciate the thought."

The two kissed gently a few more times, then peeled apart and turned to opposite directions. Dipper smiled nervously, still not entirely satisfied with the conversation, but at least feeling like he had nothing to worry about, that this weekend wasn't anything more than Wendy catching up with her pals, and that he could stand a weekend doing Dipper things by himself...

Then, as Wendy turned out the light, he felt his phone buzz. And saw the message:

_Hey Dipper - it's Pacifica! I'll be visiting Gravity Falls again this weekend - wanna hang out?_

"Well, fuck!" Dipper muttered under his breath. Wendy stirred, ever-so-slightly, without turning over. She must have already fallen asleep. And Dipper just stared at the screen for an endless minute.

So much for being reassured.


	3. Chapter 3

**July 28th**

By the time Pacifica actually arrived in Gravity Falls on Saturday morning, her plan didn't seem as foolproof as it did the night before.

She arrived in town by bus, an inglorious way for a Northwest to travel, but probably the easiest way to avoid attention, at least while dressed in her bandanna and sunglasses combo. Even if one or two people on the bus stared suspiciously at her. And even if the gas fumes and coughing and small talk made it a less-than-pleasant experience.

When she stepped out into the bus station around 10:00 am, she spent a long moment taking in the town's familiar sights: the buildings, modest and rough-hewn, the trees and lumberjack statue and the old water tower with the spray-paint muffin towering over everything. And she enjoyed it, enjoyed the fresh country air in her lungs and the feeling of nostalgia that coursed through her body, until she realized that she didn't have a place to stay.

Her two closest friends from her Gravity Falls days, Tiffany and Makayla, hadn't returned her calls. (No wonder: she hadn't seen them in almost two years, either, and hadn't made much effort to stay in touch. Another of her many broken connections, this one probably too late to fix.) And she couldn't, for the life of her, think of anyone else who might be willing to accommodate her for two days. Most of her friends from those days were mere hangers-on, people who were probably more terrified of her than genuinely liked her.

Except the Pines, of course. And while she was fine catching up with Dipper and Mabel, did she  _really_  want to stay at the Mystery Shack?

No matter. She  _was_  still a Northwest, and still Pacifica, and despite everything that happened recently, she assumed that the usual doors remained opened to her. And if not, well, she'd brought enough cash along with her to make sure she could  _make_  them open.

* * *

"What do you mean, the Northwest suite is closed? My family's had an entire wing of your hotel reserved for our special use for over 50 years!"

"Miss Northwest, I am very sorry, but the Northwest suite is no longer reserved. It is open to the general public and, well, obviously our guests prefer the nicest rooms in the hotel after traveling such a long way..."

"Augustus, I've known you since I was four. You and my dad were close friends! Doesn't that mean  _anything_?"

The hotel clerk, tall, wiry and middle-aged, glowered at Pacifica over his glasses.

"At one time it might have," he said after a moment, regarding Pacifica coldly. "But not any more. He's no longer welcome in this establishment. Besides which," he added with undisguised venom that chilled Pacifica to her bones, "we don't do favors for  _criminals_."

"But my dad isn't a criminal!" Pacifica wailed, a bit too insistently, especially for what she knew was a bad, transparent lie. "I mean, I know what's being said about him, but innocent until proven guilty..."

"In the eyes of the law, certainly. In the court of public opinion..."

And Augustus shrugged indifferently, glaring stone-faced with a bare minimum of propriety. He didn't have much sympathy for the younger Northwest to begin with, and her imperious attitude this moment removed any he might have mustered. So far as he was concerned, she was very much her father's daughter.

"That's not fair," Pacifica pouted under her breath. This eliciting no response from Augustus, she tried another tactic.

"Well...I don't have to stay in my family's suite," Pacifica said. "Do you have any...normal rooms available?"

"What's a normal room?" Augustus asked with a faint tinge of sarcasm. "Could you be specific?"

"Like, a room that anyone coming in off the street would buy!" Pacifica didn't realize how imperious she sounded until the words had left her mouth; by then, it was too late to take them back.

"We  _might_  have something," Augustus muttered, opening a reservation book and pretending to read it carefully. "Of course, this is a busy time of year, so..."

"Anything you have," Pacifica pleaded. And she watched impatiently as he slowly, deliberately leafed through the book.

"Hmm...I'm sorry, Miss Northwest, I don't think we have any rooms currently available." He snapped the book shut with loud, deliberate effect. "Might I suggest calling ahead next time?"

Pacifica stared at him, mouth open in shock at the insult. After a long moment, trembling in rage and disbelief, she walked to the front door, brushing past a young couple dressed in plain t-shirts. She hesitated a moment, stopping to listen as they approached the front desk.

"Hello, we'd like a room for two," the man said, holding his wife with one arm.

"Certainly, sir," Augustus said cheerfully. "We have a whole bunch of economy rooms open on the first floor..."

Pacifica made a loud, angry huffing noise and burst out of the hotel. And as she left, swallowing her anger, a dim, angry memory from two years past floated loose from her subconscious...

* * *

_"The Gravity Continental has been the town's premiere hotel since 1932," Preston announced to his daughter and her boyfriend, Dipper Pines as he led them on an impromptu tour. "It's been renovated several times since then, but as you can see it's the nicest place to stay in town. That fountain there was donated by my ancestor's business partner, Thomas Gage, right after it opened. And we spared no expense on the marble tiling, of course."_

_"This is very nice," Dipper said unenthusiastically, examining the artwork on the walls, mostly portraits of old, grave-looking men, probably Northwests or similar moneybags he didn't recognize or care about. "I mean, it certainly looks like you spent a lot of time on it."_

_"Come on, Dipper," Pacifica teased him. "Look alive! I know you're not used to fancy places like this, but at least pretend it's fun!"_

_"Yeah, 'my kind' isn't used to swanky digs like this," Dipper said, struggling to hide his resentment._

_He was dressed in his Sunday best, or something like it, looking as awkward as he always did in a borrowed tuxedo. She looked gorgeous, wearing her newly tailored lake foam green dress with matching gloves and an elegant looking choker. She was in her element, for sure; he, clearly, was not and struggled to pretend otherwise. And this was their first real, official "date," such as it was, though it was chaperoned by Preston who watched the young man like a hawk._

_"And here is the Continental Cafe," Preston said, leading them into a huge restaurant complete with elegant, red velvet trimmings, classical statues and more of the ubiquitous Great WASPs of the Past paintings. A light classical tune - Pacifica recognized Schubert's Piano Trio in E, one of her father's favorites - poured delicately from the speakers._

_"One perk of dating a Northwest, Dipper, is that you'll get this wonderful restaurant pretty much to yourself, whenever you and Pacifica desire," Preston boasted. "And naturally, I'm footing the bill."_

_"Naturally," Dipper said, plopping himself down in the nearest chair._

_Preston forced a laugh. "Come on, Dipper, this isn't nearly the best seat in the house," he said, gesturing to an elevated table in the middle of the room. There was a fresh-cut rose in the middle of the table, along with elegant napkins._

_"Dad, it's all right if he sits here," Pacifica said, starting to sit down beside him. Then she noticed her father's unanswerable glare, and she meekly stood up and led her boyfriend away. She couldn't look Dipper in the eye._

_They sat down dutifully, acting more like prisoners than partners, at the assigned table. An older-looking man with a skunk stripe and a mustache came over, offering each of them menus._

_"Good evening, Miss Northwest, you look stunning," he said with a bow. "And I assume this is Mr. Pines?"_

_"It is!" Pacifica said, enthusiasm coming back into her voice. "My new beau."_

_"My name is Samuel, and I'm your maitre'd," he said, offering Dipper his hand. "Delighted to meet you, sir."_

_"Same," Dipper said, forcing a smile. Pacifica giggled, and he felt a little better._

_"Francois will be your waiter," Samuel commented, gesturing to a tall bald man standing beside him. "Only the best for these two...Could I start you off with, ah, some sparkling water?"_

_"Sure," Dipper said._

_"Delightful!" Pacifica said, laughing. And she looked at her boyfriend's eyes, catching a glimpse of his awkwardness and discomfort, but wondering why he couldn't just loosen up._

_She sympathized with him - she really did. To an extent, anyway - this wasn't what Dipper was used to, he couldn't just walk into a fancy exclusive restaurant and feel ultra-comfortable. Especially with her overbearing father watching every move. But she had done so much that **she**  wasn't entirely comfortable with, whether monster hunting or crocheting with Mabel or eating pizza while watching lousy movies at the Shack - things that weren't her bag, not even close, but she managed to enjoy them anyway, for the most part at least._

_And she really hoped that Dipper, despite everything, could see his way clear to her. A nice dinner wasn't much of a small sacrifice, wasn't it? If this date went well, Pacifica was sure that Preston would let the two of them go off on their own, without him joining them. If only he could turn off his dorkiness and commonness and enjoy the sweet life for just one night..._

_And for the first part of the evening, it didn't seem too bad. True, the conversation with Preston centered as much around his business as anything else - he asked Dipper a few perfunctory questions about his interests and his continued monster hunting, but mostly kept to himself. Dipper and Pacifica only managed to capture a few snatches of their own conversation, though they anxiously grasped hands and brushed legs under the table, out of their father's sight. Pacifica tried her best through a squeeze of her hand here, an appreciative smile there, that she appreciate what he was doing, that if he could just power through it, there would be fun on the other side._

_Still, the food was nice - Dipper enjoyed some quality prime rib, and Pacifica had a nice filet of cod. Preston didn't eat anything, merely sipping some wine as his daughter and her beau ate. It was the best part of the evening...until, just as he polished off the last of his roasted potatoes, Dipper looked up and saw the photograph mounted over their heads._

_It wasn't anything remarkable, at first...a scene from some years past, with George Northwest - Pacifica's great-grandfather - the hotel's founder and two others standing outside the hotel. But Dipper noticed a sign in the background of the photo:_

**_THE GRAVITY CONTINENTAL_ **

**_A CHRISTIAN HOTEL_ **

_And naturally, it piqued his curiosity._

_"What does that mean, a Christian Hotel?" he asked._

_Preston seemed unfazed. "Oh, that. It just meant that when the hotel was founded, it was founded by Christians and for Christians. Like most things in the 1930s, it was very exclusive."_

_"Yeah, I guess, but that's just a weird way of putting things," Dipper said, scratching his head. Pacifica smiled nervously, trying desperate to think of something to change the subject. Nothing came, and she could only grin dumbly as the evening degenerated into a genteel hell._

_"Well, they expected the clientele to be the town's richest and most influential, which in those days were mostly, almost exclusively Christian. Nothing more."_

_"I mean, I don't think there would have been too many other faiths around here, anyway..."_

_Preston took another sip of wine; Pacifica's smile melted into a horrified gape. She then remembered something about her boyfriend that she didn't personally care about, that he'd mentioned maybe once or twice in passing over the years, but which she now recalled, too late to stop it, but just soon enough to anticipate what he asked next:_

_"You mean, this place didn't allow Jews?"_

_The waiter and maitre'd stopped cold, sharing a guilty, suspicious glance. Pacifica saw a flash of embarrassment, then anger cut across her father's face, and blushed herself. The music seemed to vanish, before she heard Schubert's violin insistently scratching out a new movement._

_"Well...we didn't allow a lot of people back then," the maitre'd said hesitantly, as the waiter broke off and went wandering towards the kitchen. "Unfortunately, in those days exclusive meant excluding a lot of different groups who weren't, ahh, widely accepted in society." His eyes kept darting nervously between Dipper and Preston, who stared stone-faced, as if daring him to go on._

_"Oh, why don't you tell him the whole truth?" Preston said, breaking the impasse. "This hotel didn't allow Jews, it's true. It also didn't allow Catholics, or blacks, or Hispanics, or Italians..."_

_"Italians?" Dipper interrupted incredulously._

_"Let's just say, in those days it served a very limited, very elite clientele. Fortunately," Preston said with the minimal honesty and self-aggrandizing boosterism worthy of a Chamber of Commerce speaker, "things have changed since that intolerant time. We'll let just about anyone in here now."_

_And Dipper was observant enough to catch the timbre of Preston's voice, disdain bleeding through that last comment. Pacifica, meanwhile, buried her head in her gloves, looking like she wanted to tunnel out through the floor._

_"Well, I'm glad to hear that," Dipper muttered, taking a drink from his glass. And maybe, if he had a bit more tact, the evening would have moved on from there. Except:_

_"Of course, my family's Jewish."_

_Pacifica felt her face flush, felt her head spin, and struggled not to pass out. She couldn't even face her father to see his reaction, though she heard an insincere "Well, good for you! Mazel tov!" from his end of the table. Instead she glanced at Dipper's face, hard set and challenging, and was left to imagine what horrors were simultaneously flashing across her father's visage._

_Afterwards, Pacifica couldn't even pretend to enjoy the evening. The conversation, likely droning and perfunctory anyway, was mumbled words, food and drink ash in her mouth (even the restaurant's special Marionberry cheesecake tasted positively corpse-like), the music warping into sour, discordant notes. And she felt a deep well of sadness crushing her._

_Her dream date with her dream boy had turned into her worst nightmare. All because she was a Northwest._

* * *

Pacifica was hungry, so she next headed to Greasy's Diner. She rarely condescended to eat there in her younger days, but after her experience at the Continental, it seemed a logical destination. Fortunately, Lazy Susan was much more accommodating.

"Hello there, Pacifica!" Susan greeted her, slapping a menu under her nose. "Forgot to tell you how much I  _loved_  your Pioneer Days speech! You were the hit of the town."

"Wow, um...thank you!" Pacifica said, slumping down in her seat in embarrassment. "I'm always glad to come, so..."

"And we're glad to have you!" Susan beamed. Though Pacifica noticed two other townspeople at the bar staring at her and shaking their heads.

"What'll it be, hon? You look famished."

"Umm...maybe this grilled chicken breast."

"Sure thing. Fries okay with that?"

Fries with  _grilled_  chicken? That didn't make sense to Pacifica. But she nodded weakly and agreed, then added an iced tea to drink as an afterthought.

Pacifica knew that she'd been recognized, though at least the two other customers had turned back to their meal. So she pulled off her bandanna and sunglasses and sighed, wondering if she could go one minute without being humiliated.

She took out her phone as she waited for her food. To her disappointment, Dipper hadn't texted her back.  _Of course he hadn't._  He must have had the same thoughts that she did.

She felt like crying, like giving up altogether, like marching back to her parents' estate and surrendering to the misery. But she felt just enough fight, just enough hope to type another text.

_"Hey Dipper - it's Paz. I'm at Greasy's Dinner getting lunch. Please come join me, I'd love to see you!"_

She allowed herself a small smile as she sent it, then hunkered down in her seat, trembling in anticipation for a response.

She waited several minutes, staring at her phone, ignoring the food and drink being placed in front of her, ignoring the murmurs of other patrons as they walked past, ignoring Lazy Susan arguing yet again with her turnstile. And despair crept back into her mind.

She picked at her food, not really tasting the bland, over-salted chicken or the greasy fries, let alone the watery, flavorless iced tea.

Then her phone buzzed. With unrestrained glee, she snapped the phone up and read the message:

_"Hey Pacifica! You're at the Diner? I'll be down in about fifteen minutes - doing some work for Great Uncle Ford this morning. See ya!"_

And her heart fluttered, thinking for the first time all day that maybe, just maybe, this trip back home wasn't a waste of time after all.


	4. Chapter 4

It only took about five minutes before Dipper and Pacifica's relationship returned, more or less, back to normal.

Dipper had spent the morning investigating foxfire sightings outside of town, and he bowled breathlessly into the particulars, with Pacifica only half-able to follow the resulting flurry of figures and factoids.

"...I talked to this Burgoyne guy on the phone, and he told me that he must have spent at least four hours passed out in the woods after seeing these lights.  _Four hours_! I mean, that's the amount of Missing Time you'd expect from an alien abduction or something like that. He said it was this strange orange-green light that kinda hovered off the ground and then enveloped him in light. And he didn't remember anything after that until he woke up on the ground a few hours later, with these weird burn marks everywhere around him."

Pacifica nodded along respectfully, a bit bewildered by the story and intimidated by her ex's enthusiasm. She thought the guy might have been intoxicated or something, but kept her skeptical thoughts to herself. When Dipper was on a roll, he was on a roll.

"I described them to Great Uncle Ford," he went on, "and sent him some pictures of the burn marks. He said that Burgoyne's description of the lights most reminded him of the Marfa Lights down in Texas, only they've never been known to approach, let alone attack anyone. And these burn marks! Here, take a look."

Dipper eagerly pushed his phone towards Pacifica, showing her the pictures of scorched patches of earth, which meant little or nothing to her. She smiled gingerly, then passed the phone back.

"Dipper...I just got back into town," Pacifica sighed. "Can't we, like, catch up a little bit before we go off on a monster hunt?"

"But we  _are_  catching up," Dipper insisted. Though as he pulled the phone back, he realized what she meant.

"I mean...we've barely talked for the past couple of years, and mostly about, you know, my dad when we did. I wanna know what you're up to, what you're planning to do when you go to college?"

She smiled coyly. "I mean, I'm sure  _you're_  going to college."

"Oh yeah, I'm going to West Coast Tech," Dipper said proudly.

"Have you declared a major yet? I'm sure Paranormal Studies or whatever isn't a major, unfortunately..."

"No..." Dipper mused. "But, I mean, there's a lot of related disciplines that tie into it. Ford suggested I might try Physics, but...I mean, I like it, it interests me, but it's a bit dry for a major, you know? I'm thinking more an Earth Science or Biology kinda deal."

"Oh, I'm sure you'd be great at those!" Pacifica said. "Plumbing the zoological classifications of the Sasquatch, the Gremloblin, and...what were those little golf balls called?"

"The Lilliputtians!" Dipper chuckled. "Man, I always forget about those little weirdos!"

"I mean, think about it, Dip," Pacifica said, leaning towards him. "They all developed along the lines of different extant human cultures. Somehow, these golf ball creatures not only evolved and became sentient, but took on the characterizations of, like, knights and Dutch people and miners. The biological processes behind that must be fascinating."

"Oh, I'm sure," Dipper agreed, grateful that she seemed interested in some part of his life's work. "Although, I'm not sure how much stuff like that can be considered, like, biological, as opposed to..."

"Magic? Well, there's  **always**  an explanation for  _everything_. I think  you told me that once."

"Yeah," Dipper remembered. "Just not always the explanation you might want."

The two stared silently at each other, smiling awkwardly. Then Pacifica looked away, prompting Dipper to continue their chat. Though he was afraid to pursue the topic he knew was on both their minds.

"So...how are things with your parents?"

"Oh, it's...pretty bad. Awful, actually." She spit out an awkward laugh, happy to say it out loud. "My dad is about to lose all his business holdings, he's facing a dozen lawsuits and God knows how many charges against him from the state. He keeps waiting for the indictments to drop and spends all the time with his lawyers. He can't admit defeat, and he's gonna drag everyone down with him before he does."

"Man, I'm sorry," Dipper murmured. "I mean, I'm not that sorry for him, but..."

"I know what you mean, Dip," Pacifica assured him. "He's a bastard. I'm done with him. I still feel bad for my Mom, who doesn't deserve to put up with that, but...I mean, I'm gonna try and make a clean break from them. As clean as I can, anyway."

"Really? How are you gonna do that?"

Pacifica smiled again. "Well first, by moving back here! At least for the rest of the summer."

Dipper's jaw dropped open. "Y-you-you mean..." he stammered.

"I can't stay with my parents," Pacifica said. "Not while they're under siege and destroying themselves. And I have so few real friends anywhere...Where else would I go?"

She looked at Dipper wistfully, hoping he'd be happy with the news. Instead, Dipper clenched his jaw and swallowed a regret.

"That's great, Pacifica," he said, forcing a grimace. "I mean, I'd be happy to see you, and I'm sure Mabel would, too..."

"Where  _is_  your sister, anyway?" Pacifica pried.

"Oh, she and Charlie went up to Portland for the weekend to do Mabel things."

"Oh, geez. I'll be he's gonna drag her to a Ron Chernow lecture so he can yell at him about how he's a sellout."

"Hey, no, that was just the one time with that one guy."

"I dunno, he strikes me as a repeat offender."

The two grew silent again. Lazy Susan showed up, passing Dipper a hamburger which he nervously nibbled on. Then Pacifica pounced:

"Anyway...where's Wendy?"

Dipper gasped, then choked on the burger in his mouth, forcing it down with a long, heavy cough. Then took a long drink of soda after it. Pacifica wasn't too thrilled about _that_  answer.

"Wendy is with her friends this weekend," Dipper grumbled. "Of course, she'd rather spend time with that loser Robbie than help me unravel a mystery."

"I'm sure that's not true," Pacifica assured him. "I mean, she knew Robbie way before she even met you! And Tambry since she was a little girl. I remember they were hanging out together when I was still in diapers."

"Yeah, and Robbie's her ex," Dipper said, crossing his arms. "So, it's a little..."

"Well,  _I'm_   **your**  ex," Pacifica reminded him. "And you don't seem to think it's a little..."

Dipper sighed. "I mean, it  _is_  a little..." And they both chuckled at that vague, meaningless phrase.

"But, I'm glad you're here," Dipper said, smiling. "I mean, I always like to see you. And it will be great to have someone come along with me this weekend."

"Whoa," Pacifica said. "Hold up. Come along doing  **what**?"

Dipper stared at her. "Umm...helping me track down the foxfire."

Pacifica sighed with exaggerated irritation. "Mason Pines" - and she relished the exaggerated wince that always accompanied her using his given name - "we get to hang out for the first time  _for real_  in two years, and you want to drag me along looking for some dumb mystery lights in the deep woods? Lights that could be dangerous or evil spirits or, I dunno, kidnap us and transport us to another dimension? Or even  **kill**  us?"

Dipper slumped down in his seat. "I mean, when you put it like that..."

Pacifica leaned forward until Dipper looked up at her, saw her grinning more broadly than she had in years.

"Like, let's  **do**  this!"

* * *

_"What on Earth is a hoop snake?" Pacifica demanded as Dipper scoped out the clearing in the woods._

_"It's a creature very common in American folklore," her boyfriend explained officiously. "Essentially, it's a giant snake that bites its own tail, forms a giant hoop or ring and rolls after its prey. Supposedly it has a sharp spike in its tail that, when it gets close, it will aim at you and impale you with it. Supposedly it's so poisonous you'll die instantly."_

_There were several words in Dipper's explanation that made Pacifica nervous. Snake, for one. Giant, for another. Poison, perhaps most of all. In combination, yikes!_

_"I don't know why I let you drag me along on these things," she murmured, not bothering to hide her alarm. "I mean, the jackalope was one thing - that was weird, but pretty much harmless. And that Bigfoot just wanted some beef jerky. But a giant rolling snake!?"_

_"It's cool," Dipper assured her, flipping through a notepad. "We don't even know if they're real or not. And besides, Great Uncle Ford says there's an easy way to defeat them."_

_"Oh yeah? What's that?"_

_"Just get it to roll into a tree. It will get its spike stuck in there, and poison the tree. Or is it itself? Either way, it won't be a danger to us anymore."_

_Pacifica scoffed, decidedly not reassured, then looked around. "I guess there are a lot of trees around here," she said, not really convinced._

_So far it had been a pretty typical day dating Dipper Pines. At least the mortifying experience at the Continental was behind them; Pacifica had apologized profusely for her father's comments and for putting Dipper in that situation, but she seemed far more embarrassed than him. Next time they got together, she assured him, we would do a Dipper thing. Which she took to meant spending an evening at the Shack watching movies, possibly with Mabel and Soos pop-ins. She didn't picture being out in the dark woods with a giant killer snake._

_Nonetheless, she dutifully watched as her brother followed a small earthen trail through the clearing. There were birds chirping, some squirrels and mundane wild life skittering out of the way, but little sign of anything mysterious. Not a manotaur, not a gremloblin, not even a gnome. It was as peaceful as the woods in Gravity Falls could possibly be..._

_Until Dipper opened up a small bottle of a thick, foul-smelling liquid which made Pacifica gag._

_"What is **that**?" she said, covering her nose._

_"It's synthetic Hoop Snake musk," Dipper said. "Ford found a description of the smell in one of his books and decided to make some himself." He caught a whiff himself and blanched. "Jeez Louise, that is ripe! Well, let's hope it works."_

_And Dipper carefully sprinkled some droplets of the liquid around the clearing. Pacifica coughed in disgust as the musk hit her nose again. Then Dipper grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back across the clearing. They hid some bushes along the side of the field, hoping to scope out any creatures attracted to the smell._

_"I can't believe I'm doing this," Pacifica said again. "All this for a weird snake that might not even exist!" That I hope doesn't exist, she told herself._

_"Shhh," Dipper hissed. They sat quietly for a long moment, hearing some creatures rustling through the grass. The wind blew, ever so gently..._

_And Pacifica, by pure impulse, placed her hand on top of Dipper's. Dipper was startled, adorably shivering, then looked at his girlfriend._

_"This is all crazy, but...I'm glad I'm doing it with you," Pacifica said._

_"Yeah...same here," Dipper agreed._

_The two looked longingly at each other. It seemed an odd time in the kiss, crouching the grass waiting for a cryptid to show up, but Pacifica always felt you should seize the moment. She leaned in, and Dipper, hesitantly at first, started to reciprocate..._

_Then Pacifica caught that foul odor again, and recoiled._

_"Yuck! Dipper, you didn't splash any of that stuff on yourself, did you?"_

_"Umm...not on purpose."_

_Pacifica peeled herself away, like she'd touched garbage. Then realized, to her horror, that the scent was on her, too._

_"Ohh, gross!" She recoiled. "You'd better hope I can get this off, or I'll..."_

_"Or you'll sue me?" Dipper teased. "You're welcome to the $42.86 in my bank account right now."_

_Pacifica hit Dipper in the shoulder, making him cry out._

_Their argument must have been louder than they thought. For they heard a loud rustling close by. And Pacifica turned, and swallowed a scream._

_A huge brown-green snake, at least 15 feet long, reared up from the grass and looked hungrily at the two teenagers. It flickered its tongue and arched its head back, preparing to strike._

_"Don't move," Dipper whispered, his hand reaching slowly towards his bookbag...He needn't say anything, as Pacifica was paralyzed with terror._

_The snake prepared to move...and struck!_

_Pacifica screamed, and fell backwards as a large blast of light illuminated the air. The snake flew backwards, startled. Pacifica laid still for a long moment, examining herself to make sure that she wasn't injured, feeling her heart racing against the ground, sniffing the ozone from the blast._

_"Pacifica, are you all right?" Dipper rushed over to her. He was carrying Ford's magnet gun in one hand and powered it down carefully._

_"What...how...?" Pacifica sputtered a few inarticulate words, then reached up and hugged Dipper as tight as she could. After a moment, she released him, then looked down at the front of her shirt. All covered in dirt._

_"Dipper Pines, you owe me a new summer outfit!" she scolded him, desperately trying to brush herself off._

_"I'm sorry," he said, feeling a bit dazed, though not really surprised by her reflexive petulance._

_"I just bought these clothes last week!" she continued. But she let a small smile creep into the corner of her mouth, letting Dipper know that she was only joking. Possibly._

_"Hey, better you ruin that shirt than become snake food," he said._

_"I'd rather not experience either," she snapped. "But since we came this far, let's look at that gross thing."_

_The two kids examined the snake, which was still twitching from the electricity, curled up into a tight ball. Dipper couldn't tell if it was alive or not, but he kept his distance to be safe. He took out his camera and snapped a few quick pictures, then scribbled some notes on his notepad. Then he walked as close as he dared, trying to make out details..._

_"Never seen a snake like this before," Dipper marveled. "The color looks like an anaconda's, but the body's all wrong - it's not fat enough. And there shouldn't be anything bigger than a gopher snake or a rattler around these parts..."_

_It was Pacifica, though, that noticed the creature's trademark._

_"Dipper, look," she pointed. Gingerly, she stepped forward and grabbed its tail, lifting it off the ground slightly. At the end was a large yellow-red spike jutting out._

_"Oh, wow!" Dipper said, fumbling for his camera. "That's amazing!"_

_"Guess this was the guy we were looking for after all, huh?" Pacifica marveled._

_"Wow...Pacifica, do you realize what this means? We just discovered a whole new species of snake! And we proved a centuries-old legend is real."_

_"Well, at least one of those things," Pacifica said. "I mean, we didn't see it roll up or anything like that."_

_"Okay, now Ford would want us to bring back a specimen if we could."_

_"Dipper, no," Pacifica snapped. "Look at how big it is, for one thing. And if you think I'm carrying a smelly, maybe-not-dead snake three miles back to the Mystery Shack..."_

_"Right, Princess, I'm sorry," Dipper murmured. "Anyway, I think you're right. It's probably too big even for both of us to carry." He stood over the reptile, like a hunter staking claim over his prey, or a dork with a puffed-out chest. Either way, it made Pacifica's heart sink, just a little, and she giggled despite herself._

_"Still, it would have been awesome to bring one of these things back to Ford..."_

_"Don't worry," Pacifica told him. "We've got pictures, and notes, and all that stuff! And I guess we could, like, bring him back here to see the body. Besides, if there's one of these guys, there must be another one - right?"_

_As if in answer, there was another loud noise beside them. Dipper and Pacifica turned and saw another snake, even bigger, slithering into the passage, flicking its tongue anxiously._

_"Uhh...Dipper," Pacifica said, starting to back away. "You still have that magnet gun...right?"_

_The snake went over to its dead friend, sniffing with its nose for a moment, then turned its attention back to the petrified kids._

_"Umm..." Dipper muttered. He had left it back in their hiding spot._

_The snake started to raise itself off the ground in a menacing threat display. And Pacifica gasped as she spotted the tail, with the same small spike raising off the ground behind it. And she noticed a small drop of venom glittering at its tip._

_The three creatures, two terrified humans and one angry snake, stood each other off for a long moment, daring each other to make the first move._

_Then Pacifica, despite her trembling, despite her mind racing with terror, decided to act._

_"Hey, scaly!" she yelled. "Maybe you don't know who you're messing with, but you should ask your buddy here what to expect. This is Dipper Pines, the world's leading expert in weird! And I'm Pacifica Northwest, the richest girl in Gravity Falls! Between us, there's no way you're walking...umm, slithering, whatever, away from this one."_

_The snake turned its gaze from Dipper to Pacifica, as if trying to understand her taunts. Dipper took advantage of the distraction, dipping back into the grass for his magnet gun._

_Pacifica stood her ground, despite feeling her legs shaking beneath her. She shot the snake a glare, practically daring it to attack her. She couldn't believe that she was doing something so stupid...or maybe it was brave? She couldn't tell._

_Either way, she heard Dipper cranking up the magnet gun again...Then saw the snake fall backwards as a blast hit it on the side of its head._

_"Took you long enough," Pacifica cracked. But Dipper grabbed her and pulled her away._

_"Come on," he insisted. "The gun didn't have time to fully recharge, so it only stunned him. Let's go before it wakes up."_

_"Wakes up?" But Pacifica was soon running alongside them._

_The two kids stampeded breathlessly through the woods, dodging tree stumps and fallen branches, feet glopping through the mud. Pacifica didn't even have time to complain when one of her designer sneakers came off._

_And they heard a strange rumbling noise behind them. Pacifica turned around and saw, to her horror, that the legend was true..._

_Because the Hoop Snake had formed itself into a giant snake wheel and rolled after them! She screamed at the sight of their scaly pursuer, watching as it regained lost ground._

_"Come on, let's serpentine! Run back and forth!" Dipper shouted, and Pacifica obeyed. The two tried running in different directions, back and forth, as they moved, but the snake kept coming. Somehow the creature managed to maintain complete control of itself as it rolled._

_"Dipper!" Pacifica yelled between breaths. "Can't you shoot it again?"_

_"Gun's...out...of...electricity..." Dipper huffed._

_The two ran down a small hill. Dipper tripped over a small rock and fell flat on his face, tumbling down the hill, until a small tree root stopped his fall. Pacifica ran down after him, starting to pull Dipper to his feet._

_Then she saw the Hoop Snake flying overhead - yes, **flying** , in a ball, like a car that had jumped a ramp - and make a loud, triumphant hissing noise as it descended. Pacifica panicked, struggling to remember what Dipper had said about its weakness._

_Then she looked up and saw that they were under a big, thick oak tree. Exactly what the doctor ordered._

_She pushed Dipper back to the ground, and the two rolled out of the way as the snake landed on top of them. And rolled smack into the tree._

_They heard a sharp thud, then a loud, weird hissing sound like air leaking from a tire, lasting for almost a minute._

_After it finally stopped, Pacifica looked over and saw that the snake had, just as expected, embedded the spike of its tail into the tree trunk. It thrashed around helplessly for a moment, body growing limp, then finally stilled, letting out one last hiss._

_Dipper sat up, breathing heavily as he tried to comprehend what had happened._

_"That was...that was...Incredible!" He sputtered. "We actually saw a Hoop Snake...in action! I can't...I can't..."_

_Then he fell on his back in triumphant exhaustion._

_Pacifica didn't feel so incredible - the whole experience had scared her to death. But at least she'd somehow made it through in one piece. And she had to admit, she was proud of how Dipper handled the whole scaly situation._

_"You were awesome back there, Dipper!" Pacifica said. "You were...incredible!"_

_"Well, so were you...Princess," he teased. "Thanks for saving my life."_

_"Just returning the favor," she said._

_"Do I still owe you a new wardrobe?" he joked. Pacifica looked down and saw that her outfit was now completely covered in mud and dirt._

_"You're just lucky that dirt looks **amazing**  on me!" she said. Though she brushed off a few leaves before she sat down next to Dipper, who rested his head against the tree roots, still catching his breath. _

_"At least you know how to look on the bright side," Dipper said._

_"It's one of my better qualities," Pacifica agreed. And she and Dipper looked at each other for a long moment._

_"Now, where were we before those scaly bastards interrupted us?"_

_To Dipper's surprise, Pacifica leaned forward for a kiss. He accepted it, but was too exhausted and surprised to do anything more. Though frankly, at that moment he seemed perfectly okay with that._

_He marveled that Pacifica could adapt herself so easily, despite her sheltered upbringing, to the verities of monster hunting. But she was a great partner, almost as good as Mabel or Wendy. Now he felt bad that he couldn't as easily adapt to her high society life...but that was as much on Preston as him._

_But for that moment in the woods, at least, it didn't matter. Even with a dying, mythical snake lying feet away, they were satisfied just to be together._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Years! Appreciate everyone who's reading and leaving kudos (reviews/comments and other feedback are welcome, too). 
> 
> Just wanted to interject a quick explanatory note here: there will be more flashbacks in the story, and they will not necessarily be in strict chronological order. Mostly, I'm using them to highlight themes/developments in the modern day plot (along with, obviously, showing Dipper/Pacifica's old relationship), which doesn't necessarily mean a set timeline. That said, I'll try not to be too opaque or elaborate.


	5. Chapter 5

_Pacifica often replayed their relationship in her mind, over and over again, trying to figure out what went wrong. Or, maybe, what went right in the first place._

_The two enjoyed each others' company, for sure. They had a snappy, bantering rapport that made conversation a thrill and a treat. They worked great together in Dipper's investigations, whether by themselves or with Mabel, Wendy or even Soos joining them. Pacifica had no doubt about her own looks, not really; and while Dipper wasn't exactly movie star handsome, he was certainly cute in his own dorky way. Perhaps most of all, he was genuinely **nice** , which from Pacifica's experience was rare enough among boys that age. Most, fortified by hormones and a desire for prestige, saw women as trophies to hump, dump and brag about; Dipper didn't. In fact, sex rarely, if ever, seemed to enter his mind._

_She couldn't remember when she'd started having feelings for Dipper. During that first summer, she interacted much more with Mabel than Dipper. She never forgot that night at Northwest Mansion, where he helped her save the town from a murderous lumber-ghost, when he saw a human side of her that others didn't, or refused to recognize and encouraged her to be better. She was grateful for it, she remembered that night with a crystal clarity afforded to few other childhood memories; but she didn't come away from it thinking Dipper was anything more than a friend. At least, at first._

_She spent most of the next summer at a finishing school, separated (perhaps by design) from her friends in Gravity Falls. Age 14, she managed to avoid that fate by upping her etiquette game, convincing Mom and Dad that she'd managed to iron out all the wrinkles in her personality. Yet she also leaned hard into covert rebellion, smoking and drinking, dressing provocatively, running with a bad crowd behind Preston's back. Somehow she managed to hide it; or maybe Mom and Dad, as always, didn't notice, or give a damn so long as she didn't get in trouble._

_She reconnected sparingly that summer with the Pines twins, who didn't much like her turn towards the Dark Side. Mabel seemed baffled by it, torn between her eagerness to accept a friend and her recognition that she was ruining herself; Dipper seemed to loathe the new Pacifica._

_"I know I told you to be yourself, Pacifica," he scolded her at one point, "but this...isn't what I meant. What happened to the Pacifica who wanted to be a better person?"_

_"My parents killed her," she said with all the melodrama an adolescent girl could muster. That didn't strike him as a satisfactory answer, but he didn't feel like pressing._

_"If you want to ruin your life, Pacifica, don't let me stop you," he muttered angrily. "Just don't say I didn't warn you."_

_And it lasted until that November, when Pacifica went to a football game with one of her new friends, a second-rate punk named Randy Hougan who dressed like a bargain basement version of Robbie, who constantly smoked cigarettes and pot and had no direction in life beyond pissing off adults and smelling like shit. And getting laid._

_Pacifica was happy to oblige him that evening, as she had once already, and she sat through a sport she didn't give a damn about looking forward to the real action. The game was a blur of lights and whistles and pompoms; she didn't even remember who won or what the score was. Instead of heading directly home, they went to a party with several of Randy's friends, including two seniors named Max and Evelyn she knew through a class, got loaded on alcohol and stayed out past midnight doing teen things. Pacifica, fortified by booze and rebellion, asked Randy to drive her to a place more private, even though a bunch of his friends were already necking and making out._

_What happened next came straight from an after school special: two intoxicated teenagers driving way too fast down a road at night, more interested in each other than the rude mechanics of driving. Randy, reaching over to grope Pacifica with one hand, swerved into oncoming traffic with the other. Pacifica managed to grab the wheel and avoid smashing into another car...and plunged into a guard rail instead._

_Pacifica woke up later in the hospital; she'd suffered a concussion and some cuts, but no serious injuries. Randy, on the other hand, had catapulted through the windshield onto some rocks, and didn't survive the ambulance ride._

_Her parents, initially, made a pretense of caring about her; Priscilla, in particular, lapsed into protective mother mode. But Preston was furious. Pacifica overhead many loud discussions and arguments between her parents about what they should do with their daughter, and whether it might be preferable to move away._

_Move away? The thought filled Pacifica with dread. She couldn't stand the thought of leaving her hometown; as small as it was, she had friends and roots there. But then she thought of Randy, and wondered if making a fresh start was the proper answer._

_She thought about sneaking out of the house and plunging back into drink and troublemakers, but Preston and the servants watched her too closely for that. So she decided to call Evelyn to vent and commiserate._

_"Hey," a startled male voice came on the line._

_"Uh, Evie?" Pacifica asked._

_"Uh, no. Who is this?" the boy said. Pacifica thought it sounded familiar, then looked down at her phone..._

_Shit. She had dialed Dipper by mistake._

_Her first instinct was to hang up, naturally enough, and dial Evelyn back. She often wondered how her life would be different, and probably worse, if she had. But instead, she felt desperate to talk to someone, anyone...and someone like Dipper, who could bring something like an outsiders' perspective to what had just happened, might even have something worthwhile to say._

_"Hi, Dipper," she started hesitantly. And then, in a sudden manic burst, explained what had happened in gruesome detail. By the end of her soliloquy, she was on the verge of tears._

_Dipper didn't have much to say; she could only imagine him taking in the news with shock, or more likely indifference. She kept waiting for an "I told you so" or something equivalent from Dipper. And she would definitely have deserved it._

_Instead, he offered this:_

_"Pacifica...I'm so, so sorry. No one deserves to go through all that, least of all you. Are you doing okay?"_

_"Am I doing okay? I mean, my boyfriend just died and I'm still shook up, but besides that..."_

_"Are you hurt?"_

_"Not...much. I was in the hospital for a few days, but I'm okay now."_

_"Well...I don't know what to say, Pacifica. I'm glad you came out of it...as well as you did."_

_She wanted to scream at him - how could you say that I came out of it well when my boyfriend died in front of me!? - but managed to control herself. Some tears dripped down her cheeks, but she managed to avoid vocalizing her sorrow._

_"Thanks, Dipper," she said numbly, insincerely, almost a challenge for him to do better._

_"Well...I'm here if you need me, Pacifica. And Mabel, too, of course. I don't know exactly what you're going through, but...losing a loved one is tough. And...I know your life hasn't been as happy as it could be lately, anyway."_

_Pacifica laughed bitterly. "My life is like the start of a bad YA novel," she admitted._

_"Well, it doesn't have to end like one," Dipper said. "So...if you wanna talk about anything...gimme a call. Or Mabel. Or both of us. We're both your friends, and we're both here."_

_And Pacifica smiled, and wiped the tears from her cheeks. That simple bit of sincere kindness, however awkwardly expressed, touched her more than anything she'd experienced since the accident. But all she could do was repeat, with much more sincerity:_

_"Thanks, Dipper."_

* * *

"...And then we traveled back in time to prevent Charlie from getting shot. And Mabel ended up getting shot instead!"

"Ohmigosh, and then what happened?"

"Well, Mabel lived."

Pacifica stared at Dipper, waiting for another shoe to drop.

"Umm...and then we saved the world?"

"You jerk!" Pacifica complained. "You can't just build up to something like that and then end the story on a bum note."

"I wouldn't say saving the world was anticlimactic!" Dipper insisted.

"Guess not," Pacifica said, adopting a playful look. "So...you saved me yet again, and this time I didn't even  _know_  about it. Guess I owe you a favor."

"Consider this mission that favor," Dipper said, holding the Shack's front door open for her Pacifica. She blushed as she went inside, impressed that Dipper was as much a gentleman as always.

The Shack struck Pacifica as run-down looking and chintzy as ever. But she didn't say anything, mostly feeling glad to be in a familiar place that brought back mostly good memories. As they marched in the front door, Dipper spotted Stan sitting in the den, scarfing on a sandwich.

"Hey Grunkle Stan."

"Hey Dipper," he said. "Did you end up finding...?" He practically choked on his food when he spotted Pacifica.

"Hi, Stan," she said shyly.

"Hey...Pacifica," he said, taking a moment to remember her name. "Are you still the one tolerable member of your family?"

"The jury's still out on that one," she said playfully. Stan chuckled at that one.

"How's  _your_  investigation going?" Dipper asked.

"It's going," he said. He settled back into his chair and didn't say more.

Dipper frowned, still a bit upset that Stan wouldn't share his research with him, especially considering the subject matter. But right now, he had other things on his mind. He led Pacifica upstairs without exchanging a further word with his Grunkle.

"Ugh, that kid..." Stan mused. "Goes from a complete loser to having two women after him at once." He smiled. "Takes after me that way, I guess, because he sure doesn't get that from his dad."

He turned on the television, switching over to a rerun of  _Baby Fights_. Young love interested him much, much less than angry infants wailing on each other.

* * *

_Over the next few years, Dipper became Pacifica's shoulder to cry on. When the family moved to Salem the following spring, less because of Pacifica than Northwest Mudflaps finally falling into bankruptcy, she spent two hours on the phone bitching about it. When she made or broke up with a new boyfriend at school, Dipper was practically the first to hear about it. When she had a complaint about her parents, and that was a regular occurrence - Dipper was there._

_She occasionally talked to Mabel, as well, but they connected on a different level. She shared her own tales of teenage woe with Pacifica, their conversations becoming an unwitting battle of one-upsmanship, with the two arguing over whose crush was hotter or who had the meanest teacher or whose friends were the **worst**. It was fun, but it wasn't always what Pacifica wanted, or needed. A lot of times she just wanted someone with great listening ears, and  that person was Dipper._

_Dipper, she noticed, rarely seemed to talk about his own problems. He would occasionally make an offhand reference to something bad that happened at school, a crush or a bully or something, but he kept his cards mostly to his chest. He did occasionally wax euphoric about some of his classes or science projects; and Pacifica, in spite of herself, started finding them more interesting the more he talked about them._

_Her life in Gravity Falls wasn't especially pleasant after the accident, though her old friends, to her surprise, needed little persuasion to take her back. She may have been disgraced, but she was still rich and pretty, after all. She stopped drinking, she reverted back to her old style of fashionably pretty outfits, good grades and outward dignity. Unfortunately, much of her old aloof haughtiness and disdain returned as well. While it seemed a step up from dying in a car wreck, it didn't necessarily make her pleasant to be around._

_In Salem, however, she started new, and she had to work her way back up the social ladder. Her outfits didn't impress too many people around the city, while her imperious attitude tended to irritate girls and turn off boys. For the first few months, she was a pariah._

_Listening to one of her complaints, Dipper offered some common sense advice._

_"Pacifica, in Gravity Falls you were the most popular girl by birth. I mean, your family founded the town. There's no way you're gonna get that in Salem or anywhere else. Maybe you need to actually work at being popular."_

_"How do I do that? Stoop to their level? Spread gossip? Bring down the Queen Bees?"_

_"Well, you could **do**  that, but I wouldn't recommend it. Maybe find some new friends who will like you for you. You know, people you can respect, who you can help and who can help you be the best You you can be."_

_"That's the silliest thing I've ever heard!" Pacifica said, only half-joking._

_But she thought about what Dipper said over the next few days. For the next semester, she decided to up her game, and change her attitude._

_She became involved in school sports - she loved field hockey, in particular - and other activities, including forensics speech, debate and acting. She took advanced placement courses and briefly became valedictorian (only to be scooped by a know-it-all teacher's kid named Sarah Clarkson). She ran for student council and helped run and set up fundraisers, planned dances, brought the school together._

_And she spent less time trying to attract the school's Queen Bees, who either outclassed her or didn't want anything to do with her - or both. Instead she became friends with the school's second- and third-tier of girls: the brainiacs who were pretty but not threateningly so, who were nice but undemanding in their affection, who sought Pacifica's help with networking and friends (and occasionally to ask out a boy they had a crush on) while she recruited them for help with her activities. Who wanted empathy and understanding and shared interests more than status. Girls who reminded her much more of Mabel and her friends than the kind of girls she'd previously held out with._

_By the end of sophomore year, she remade herself as a New Pacifica; not the Pretty Rich Bitch riddled with poorly-hidden insecurities than she'd been in Gravity Falls. She was now the Student Leader, the smart one, the poised one, the one who could befriend both cheerleaders along with the nerds and the outsiders (as for the Cool Girls, to hell with them - they didn't matter, probably wouldn't matter after they graduated). The one kids liked, teachers respected, a kind of popularity that required more work but was more fulfilling._

_Finally, Pacifica seemed happy with herself, had accomplishments that were her own and not merely her parents'. And she owed at least some of it to Dipper Pines._

_And maybe that's why, when summer began that year, dating seemed natural._

* * *

Whatever Stan may have thought, Dipper and Pacifica were talking business, at least for that moment, preparing for the evening's ghost hunt.

"Great Uncle Ford lent me his new model Spectrometer," he said, showing Pacifica a long, heavy, weird-looking electronic device. "If these foxfires are ghosts, we'll be able to identify them from up to a mile away! Plus, it has a new feature that let's us identify what kind of spirit they are - not only the danger category, but whether it's human or animal or other, approximately how old it is...It's a pretty nifty device."

"I'll say," Pacifica marveled.

"On the other hand...there's always a chance it's some kind of alien, or creature, or whatever. In which case we'll need this."

And Dipper whipped out a familiar-looking weapon.

"You  **still**  have that magnet gun!" Pacifica laughed incredulously.

"What do you mean?" Dipper answered defensively. "I've always used this as my go-to weapon."

"Yeah, I know," Pacifica said. "It's just...maybe I'd have thought you'd have upgraded by now."

"It has a much faster regeneration time," Dipper explained. "Much better, self-sustaining batteries. The one we used a couple of summers ago took about two minutes to fully recharge. This one can do it in thirty seconds!"

"That will come in handy if we run into any more Hoop Snakes!"

"Or if this foxfire is something more dangerous than we're expecting."

"Looks like we're all set," Pacifica said, watching Dipper roll his weapons and devices into a bag. "When do you wanna head out?"

"The foxfire isn't going to appear until after dark," Dipper reminded her. "And sunset's scheduled for about 8:34 tonight."

"So, we still have seven hours?"

"I guess."

Pacifica leaned back against Dipper's bed, casting her eyes nervously at the ceiling. "Oh well. I'm sure we can find _something_  fun to do in that time."

"I usually swim, but I don't know if you'd be comfortable with that."

"I didn't bring a suit," Pacifica said, before adopting her mischievous tone. "I mean, I wouldn't mind watching you, but..."

Dipper sighed, visibly aggravated by this. "Pacifica..." he began, then stopped himself, collecting his thought.

He didn't know if she was being coy or playful or if she was genuinely flirting with him. He'd never been great at reading people, especially women. He didn't want to bring  _this_  out into the open, which might force him to admit that somewhere within him, there might be unresolved feelings, regrets simmering beside him.

"You know we're just friends now, right?" he finally managed.

"Of course I know that," Pacifica said, matter-of-factly. Though the evident finality of his comment, as if there was  _no possible way_  it could be otherwise, hurt.

"Yeah, it's just...I'm kinda dating Wendy, like I told you. And I don't want it to be awkward...for any of us."

"Of course," Pacifica agreed, scooting closer to him. "I don't want to make anything awkward."

"Yeah...so maybe be careful about saying anything that forward?" he suggested, still not looking at her.

"I'm sorry," Pacifica said. "Really Dipper, I didn't mean anything by it. I just thought..."

And she left that thought hanging, having realized that flirting like that with an ex-boyfriend might not go over so well. So she said, "I'm sorry" again.

"I'm sorry for being, you know, me," Dipper said back. "You know I worry about that kinda stuff."

Pacifica nodded. Whatever Dipper may think, her words were sincere. She didn't  _want_  to fall for Dipper again, didn't want to cause any trouble. She liked and respected Wendy (even more now that they were distant cousins!) and she didn't want to hurt a girl she considered a friend, however infrequently they interacted. She also knew that if she got in between Dipper and Wendy that she'd lose the few friends she had left in the world.

And for her own part, she didn't want to reopen old wounds...though another part wondered if she should have thought about that before coming back to Gravity Falls and getting in touch with Dipper. That was on her. But it was too late now to do anything about it, except maybe to strike up and head back to Salem and misery.

The conversation stalled for a long, awkward moment. Pacifica wondered if Dipper was having identical thoughts to her. Then he finally looked over at her and asked the question which she'd both hoped and dreaded to hear all day:

"Where are you staying?"


	6. Chapter 6

Pacifica left the dread question hanging, for now. She said she didn't know how long she'd be in Gravity Falls, hopefully just a couple of days, but maybe more. In the meantime, maybe she could leave her bags and her stuff at the Shack, and let's do something fun before our big ghost hunt.

Dipper numbly acquiesced. He wasn't super keen on having Pacifica move in with them, even for a short period of time, and wondered what he'd tell Mabel. What he'd tell Wendy! The best thing he could do was find something to keep them occupied that wouldn't lead to any awkwardness or rekindle any romantic feelings in either of them.

The first thought was the library. And so Dipper and Pacifica spent a couple hours browsing books at the Gravity Falls library. Dipper found a small book, written for teens or young adults, about spook lights and related folklore, and reviewed it with Pacifica. She seemed particularly intrigued, and maybe a little frightened, about a story from Indiana in the 1880s...a boy went out on Christmas Eve to get water from his parents' well and disappeared without a trace, apparently floating away into the sky. The parents heard his screams from overhead but couldn't locate him. She audibly shivered when he concluded that chapter.

"That story can't possibly be real, can it?" she asked Dipper.

"I remember talking about it with Ford, he said this particular case is probably a hoax or a tall tale. But similar stories happen, and a lot of them surround aliens or faeries or similar beings. You know, it sounds almost like an alien abduction story, only the victim never came back to Earth. And after what happened to Tom Burgoyne..."

"Yeah," Pacifica muttered, clearly rattled about the prospect of such a strange thing happening to her. Disappearing seemed a lot scarier than merely dying, a concept Pacifica could at least comprehend.

To get their mind off the weirdness ahead, she suggested going to a movie. There wasn't anything either of them particularly wanted to see, but they agreed to watch some goofy action movie with Vin Diesel and a lot of cars and explosions. The perfect movie to turn off one's brain and pass a slow summer afternoon.

Though Dipper didn't really pay attention to the movie, not with so many things on his mind. There was their mission, of course; with a partner it would be a lot more fun, and possibly a little less dangerous, than it might have been alone. But there was also the girl next to him, who clearly hadn't shed all of their previous baggage despite her protests otherwise. And sitting next to her in a dark theater seemed less comfortable than he'd hoped.

Throughout the movie he coached himself to behave properly, platonically. But he couldn't help stealing glances at Pacifica, as beautiful as ever, smiling vacantly at the one hundred million dollar spectacle unfolding before her. Clearly happy that, for the first time in ages, she could sit back and turn her brain off, worry about nothing beyond how many of the movie's heroes would make it out of the film alive.

And he wondered...How easy it would be to rekindle things, if either of us wanted to. How easy for him to slip an arm around her shoulder and pull her close, to brush her blonde hair, to clasp her hand and hold it tight like they used to. How easy for her to grab his arm during a thrilling scene, or to bury her head sleepily in his chest or lap. Or even to sneak a kiss.

Sometimes it was painfully difficult to be friends with a girl, especially one you found attractive. Especially one, like Pacifica, whom he had dated. He remembered how long he and Wendy had danced around their feelings for each other, and how that turned out. All the times he'd been forced to settle for being "just friends" with girls at school that he'd met. Sometimes those resulted in real friendships, other times just awkwardness and annoyance.

Being Dipper, his only way to reason his way out of this predicament was to emphasize the negative in his mind. Remembering the things he didn't like about Pacifica, and about the experience of daring Pacifica. Which wasn't fair to her, or to Wendy, or to him for that matter, but was the easiest way to resolve the issue in his mind.

There was always her obsession with clothes and fashion, things he couldn't even pretend to care about. There was her haughtiness, which never vanished despite her efforts at turning over a new leaf; it could be appealing in small doses, but annoying at length. Similarly, there was a residual classism, a snobbery that never entirely left her, that always cropped up at the least opportune moments. Especially when they had formal dates. Especially when they were with her parents.

Her parents.

Which reminded Dipper of the ugliest feeling of all.

* * *

_Generally, Dipper didn't consider his religious background an important part of his life. Sure, the Pines celebrated the occasional High Holiday, they occasionally went to Temple from loyalty to their old faith. His dad, a software engineer who joked about being "the most Gentile Jew in California," nonetheless occasionally sprinkled Yiddish into conversation, especially when angry or upset (he had once called a lady friend of Dipper's a shiksa, to her confusion and his embarrassment), a tendency which rubbed off on Mabel more than Dipper. His mom, a legal aide, had been raised non-religiously in a Jewish household and carried that on to her children. And Grunkle Stan made little bones about his background, though he was an avowed atheist who hadn't been near a synagogue or temple in decades._

_And in homogenized, progressive Piedmont, it didn't seem to matter. Dipper barely gave it any thought, any more than he did the color of his hair or eyes or which hand he wrote with or his favorite food. It was a part of him, sure, but something he took for granted and ascribed no particular importance. And he had very little cause to; after all, in 21st Century, suburban California, who cared about such things?_

_Yet Dipper didn't reckon with one simple fact: that high school kids, however affluent or well-educated, like labels, if only because they help them mark others as different. Dipper already had several strikes against him, as the nerd who loved science and math and obsessed over paranormal stuff and conspiracy theories. And while being Jewish marked a less obvious difference than certain other faiths, than racial differences or sexual orientation, it made outsider kids like Dipper and Mabel no less of a target._

_There were the occasional sniggers and whispers that he easily ignored; other, more direct slights were harder to overlook. In particular, there was Derek Svenson, an athlete loud and proud about his evangelical Christianity, who enjoyed giving impromptu homilies on Christian righteousness that enlightened some and annoyed most. Being the football team's star quarterback, he attracted a broad circle of fans and friends who otherwise might not have cared for his proselytizing. He was shielded less by his faith than simple popularity._

_Ordinarily, Dipper and Derek wouldn't have ever interacted, except during Dipper's sophomore year when they shared a science class. After learning (God knows how) about Dipper's faith, Derek asked him why he didn't believe in Jesus. "I dunno man, that's just how I was raised," Dipper said. He was quite happy to let the topic drop._

_While Derek never engaged in overt bullying, he found other means of pressuring Dipper. On more than one occasion, he slipped Dipper a note in class saying that "Jesus died for your sins, why don't you love Him?" Dipper looked down the row of desks and saw Derek and two of his flunkies watching him expectantly, broad, welcoming smiles on their face. He usually tried to ignore them, but on one occasion he pointedly stared them down and crumpled the note into a ball, throwing it beneath his desk._

_After that confrontation, it took several days to return to normal. Derek's friends, even other kids who didn't really hang out with him, shot Dipper dirty looks in the halls and the cafeteria. Several acquaintances refused to sit with him at lunch (fortunately, Mabel always made room at her table). In gym class that week, both teams refused to pick him until last for their kickball game. Then, when it was his turn to kick, the other team's pitcher deliberately bounced the ball hard enough to hit him in the head._

_But he could ignore that, or brush it off, or pretend it was nothing even when it hurt, made him feel like an outsider more than he already was. He consoled himself that this dingbat probably treated Catholics, Muslims and other faiths similarly; that while Derek was awful, Dipper wasn't receiving special treatment. And such overt harassment, at least, was a short-term affair when it happened._

_But his breaking point came, unsurprisingly, with his sister._

_Mabel had never been the most normal girl, but at fifteen she was especially different. Puberty hit her hard; she developed extreme acne, she became much heavier than she'd been in her adolescence, and her hormones made her even more boy crazy than she'd been as an adolescent. She struggled to maintain her outward pleasantness amidst these changes; while her classmates saw the same cheerful, eccentrically goofy girl that they'd always known, Dipper knew that she was much more fragile and insecure than she'd ever been, that she spent hours at home worrying over every little thing that happened at school, that every crush seemed like a torment or a curse._

_And so it was with Mitch Chandler, one of Derek's friends from football. Dipper noticed that as Mabel grew older, she had two distinct stands of crush behavior. If she thought there was some chance of actually dating someone, she would smother them with notes and attention like she always had. If it was someone out of her league, like Mitch was, she would look on nervously, peering around corners and doorways and then scattering in fear if they noticed her. More than once Dipper saw Mabel at a pep rally or assembly spotting Mitch, or some other boy, and burying her face in her sweater, giggling softly as she hid from her latest crush._

_Yet Mitch seemed to like Mabel, and the two had lunch together, hung out between classes - not real dates, even by fifteen year old standards, but enough to show mutual affection. Dipper recalled hearing talk of an actual date-date from Mabel, who dizzily balanced excitement and disbelief when she told her brother. Then one day, Mabel came up to Dipper crowing that she'd actually talked to Mitch._

_"Bro-bro, you'll never believe it!" she cheered. "A friend of mine, Ava Chesney, is also a friend of Mitch's! And she was able to get us alone together! And we talked, and he said, I like football, and I said, *I* like football! Which I don't, not really, but **he**  doesn't need to know that! And then...and then...he asked me out!" And she squealed and crushed him in a hug._

_"Wow, Mabel, that's...great." Dipper wanted to feel happy for his sister, was glad that at least one of her crushes reciprocated her interest. But he also knew that Mabel's crushes were flash-in-the-pan things, destined to burn out almost as soon as they began, once Mabel met someone even cuter._

_On this occasion, however, Dipper noticed Mitch, smiling nervously at him and Mabel from across the hallway. Then Derek grabbed him gently by the arm, shooting Dipper a superior jock smirk, and pulled him away. A few minutes later, once Mabel had left, Dipper saw Mitch and Derek in deep, intense conversation._

_Then Dipper found that Mitch had decided not to date Mabel after all, claiming it was a misunderstanding. Mabel was crushed, and spent two evenings crying her eyes out at home, telling her brother and her parents that she'd never love anyone again. A few days later, she had moved on to Jimmy Sanchez, a boy she met in her art class, and who was probably a better fit than Mitch Chandler anyway._

_A week later, Dipper found a note taped to Mabel's locker. Dipper didn't know what compelled him to violate his sister's confidence: surely it was common enough for one of Mabel's friends to stick a note about a party or a crush on her locker. Maybe he remembered the confrontation with Derek, or maybe. Either way, he grabbed the note himself, and read the words in anger and disbelief:_

_**MABEL - LEAVE MITCH ALONE.** _

_**HE WON'T DATE A JEWESS.** _

_**ACCEPT JESUS OR GO TO HELL.** _

_Dipper couldn't believe it. Someone had called his sister, Mabel Pines, a slur that he'd only read in books and seen on television. A word basically reduced his sister to a monstrous, subhuman Thing, rather than a person._

_Dipper's Brother instincts kicked in. He knew already that he couldn't ever let Mabel see this note, and prayed that it was the only one that existed. He also felt - damn the consequences, be it a beating or expulsion or both - that he couldn't let this insult stand. He couldn't let some dickhead think it was okay to talk and think like a fucking Nazi in 2015._

_He instantly knew who was responsible; he recognized both the sentiment and handwriting, remembered the conversation he'd witnessed and gave into his fury. He sought out Derek, who stood by his locker surrounded by two other football players, several adoring cheerleaders, another kid Dipper didn't know._

_D_ _erek spotted Dipper and greeted him with a smile and a friendly wave, oblivious to his anger. Like many popular people, he masked smugness and contempt in outward shows of friendliness, acting like Dipper was his oldest pal rather than someone he regarded as a Christ killer, a Shylock, a Heathen with alien beliefs and weird hobbies and an even weirder sister._

_Until, that is, Dipper rushed forward and broke his fist over Derek's jaw, smashing two of his teeth and tearing his lip. To Dipper's own astonishment, the jock fell to the ground in a bloody heap, looking more shocked than hurt, showing the pitiful, pleading glare of a bully cut down to size._

_Maybe if Dipper were a tough guy he would have continued attacking him. But his hand hurt like hell (in fact, he had broken one of his knuckles), and the exhilaration and shock of the whole thing was too much for him. Instead he just stood over the bully, glowering hatefully until a teacher came and separated the two boys._

_Principal Sloan was furious. Initially, he was inclined to expel Dipper...until Dipper showed him in the note. The Principal mouthed the words as he read it, jaw dropping in shock as he read the slur, re-read it again to make it sure it was really there. Trembling with shock and rage, he told Dipper that he was sorry he'd encountered this, but that he was still required to discipline him and call his parents._

_"Please," he pleaded in response. "I don't care what you tell my parents or my sister, just...don't let them know about this. I don't want Mabel...she has enough problems without feeling bad about her background."_

_Principal Sloan nodded sympathetically. He was very much the progressive sort of educator; one thing he hated more than violence was bigotry, and he wouldn't tolerate either in his school. Ultimately, he gave Dipper a few days' detention, a mark on his permanent record, and told his parents that it was a personal argument rather than a religious one. His parents yelled at Dipper when he got home, but he gave little hint of the real cause for the disturbance. Still, Mr. and Mrs. Pines figured that it must be something extreme to provoke such a response, and didn't press him too hard about it. Thank God._

_(If Mabel ever found out, she never let him know, and it certainly wasn't because of him. Though she may well have done; Dipper heard whispers about the fight and its cause for months afterwards, and Mabel must have at least wondered...)_

_The only person he confided in about it was Grunkle Stan, whom he figured would understand. Stan seemed more angry about what had happened than proud of what Dipper did. Nonetheless, he reassured Dipper that he'd done the right thing._

_"Don't let **anyone**  to talk you kids like that," Stan rasped into the phone. "Don't care how popular or how cool or how goody-good they are. If they talk and act like a goddamn fascist, they deserve to be punched in the fucking mouth. More important though...you stood up for your sister. Doesn't matter if he insulted her religion or her looks or clothes or whatever. Nobody should ever talk to Mabel that way._

_"I really would have thought this country would have moved past this horse shit by now," Stan complained. "Ford and me and your grandpa dealt with it occasionally growing up. It hurt then, and it still hurts to think about it. But I would've expected better from your generation...woulda thought you kids wouldn't have to deal with it."_

_And his anger gave way to frustration and sadness, as the two commiserated over their realizing that the world would never be perfect, and often struggled to be good._

_Meanwhile, Derek escaped with a slap on the wrist - he was suspended for one football game, missing no school due to complaints from his parents and the coach. If anything the incident made him bolder, more assured in his religion than before. Later that fall, he held a group prayer during lunch before a football game, using his pals to badger other kids into joining. This ritual lasted only two weeks until the teachers stepped in and stopped them. Eventually, Derek's parents transferred him to a private school in Orange County, where his prejudices could be nurtured and reinforced rather than challenged._

_But he, and others, left Dipper and Mabel alone after that. Throughout the rest of high school, they didn't have to worry about any slurs about their faith. And that was enough._

_Until Dipper started dating Pacifica. And he had to interact with Preston, who offered the same prejudices in more genteel, acceptable coating. And almost every time they met, however outwardly polite and welcoming he was, those memories and feelings from Piedmont came rushing back to the surface._

* * *

Priscilla sat in the drawing room doing a crossword puzzle when Preston entered. She could tell from his expression that she was in for something.

"I just received a very interesting phone call," he began, his voice menacingly even and unemotive. "Someone from the Gravity Falls Continental Hotel gave me a ring saying that my daughter tried to buy a room there. Told me in no uncertain terms that Northwests, period, aren't welcome in that hotel any more. I told him to where to shove his condescension and insults...But the fact remains that our daughter's apparently in Gravity Falls."

"Hmm," Priscilla muttered, hiding her face behind the crossword.

"She didn't tell  _me_  that she was leaving," Preston continued, an accusatory tone creeping into her voice. "But I noticed that she had about $2,000 transferred to her account last night, and that it had been withdrawn early this morning."

"Must want to catch up with some old friends," Priscilla murmured, trying to puzzle out a seven letter word for "jerk."

"We don't  _have_  any more friends in Gravity Falls," Preston insisted. "Not a one. That's abundantly clear to me, and it should be clear to you."

" _We_  don't, because you destroyed us," Priscilla corrected him. "Pacifica still has friends there. And thank God for that! She needs some people who won't judge her for her father's sins."

Pacifica snatched the puzzle away from Priscilla with sudden violence, shooting her a death glare at close range. 

"We are all Northwests," he snarled. "Don't you forget it. And I won't let my daughter forget it either. If this family goes down, we all go down together."

Preston snapped his fingers and a servant came into the room. "Pierre, send a car to Gravity Falls and retrieve our daughter."

"Sir, the valets were let go a week ago," Pierre said apologetically. 

"No excuses, man," Preston snapped. "If you can't find anyone else, go yourself. Bring her back to here to me at once."

"Very good, sir," Pierre said, bowing his head and exiting. 

"You're going to ruin our daughter's life," Priscilla muttered, no longer able to face her husband. "She's only 18 and she won't have anything to live for." 

Preston glowered for a long, hard moment, puzzling how to respond to that.

"No, I'm going to save my daughter's life," he said finally, before exiting the room, leaving Priscilla alone. After he left, she snatched the puzzle back off the floor and filled in the word which had previously stumped her:

**PRESTON**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I am not Jewish. Whether the Pines are canonically Jewish or not appears to be an open question (Alex Hirsch has said different things at different times, most recently leaning towards "yes, but atheist or nonpracticing"). I realize antisemitism is always a touchy issue and I apologize if readers find my handling of it here poor or inappropriate. I was leery about bringing it into a Gravity Falls fic, but on the other hand I thought it might be an interesting way to explore parts of Dipper and Mabel's potential background. 
> 
> That said, I can draw loosely on some personal experiences, despite being a Gentile. Specifically, I was raised Catholic and went to an overwhelmingly Protestant school. Yes, I had evangelically-inclined kids pass me notes asking why I didn't accept their version of Christianity. And a Jewish friend of mine received similar notes to Mabel imploring her to accept Jesus or die. Kids are cruel.


	7. Chapter 7

Priscilla Northwest hated seeing photographs of herself. If nothing else, they reminded her of how much she had changed over time. Of happier times that were half-forgotten, smudged by time and regret, that could never again be entirely summoned. The only ones she enjoyed were pictures of herself and her daughter together (even if  **He**  appeared in all of them). If she were honest with herself, Pacifica might be the only reason she were still alive in 2018. And if her family was going to split apart...

Yet as she sat alone in the drawing room, accompanied only by a clock ticking metronomically in the background, photographs surrounded her. Pictures of herself and Preston, aging from a fresh couple in love's first bloom to comfortable adulthood to angry, crabbed middle age. Also several pictures of herself, as a teenager playing polo or tennis, as a young woman modeling for a photo magazine or beauty contest, as a beaming young mother and repressed older socialite forced to swallow her regrets for the sake of the Family Name.

The picture she hated most of all might have been the most revealing. Taken by Preston not long after they started dating, it showed her reclining on a California beach wearing a striped two-piece bathing suit and sun hat, mischievously pulling a pair of sunglasses down the bridge of her nose. In every way she looked different: her hair a darker shade of brown, her figure fuller, her face rounder (much like Pacifica's, in fact). And more than anything, she looked so  _happy_ ; a young woman full of beauty and energy and life, possessing hopes and dreams not yet crushed by time, age and an awful marriage.

Now she felt like a refugee from a Fitzgerald novel or a Visconti film, drowning in her own family's decadence, too complacent and resigned to pull herself out. She didn't think of saving herself, didn't think she could. Didn't think it would be worth the effort, even if she wanted to. But she still had a daughter to protect, if only she could figure out how.

Her eyes then stopped on another picture - a picture of herself from about eight years ago on a tennis court, posing happily with a racket leaning against her right leg. Pacifica, wearing a matching outfit, hung shyly to the other leg, smiling at the camera. Maybe the last time she remembered being happy.

* * *

_Priscilla Connolly was just 21 when she met Preston Northwest. Six years her senior, he was a dashingly handsome man, full of energy and dreams of turning his father's dying business into a major concern. It was easy to be attracted to him then; his ambitions were those of a young man, his opinions animated with energy, his manner suave and charming._

_Priscilla met him largely by accident. From an early age she wanted to write, and she was studying journalism at Oregon State when, in junior year, a classmate suggested she try modeling to make some extra money. Priscilla took her up on the offer, and modeled for several local photographers for a meager sum - barely enough to buy cheeseburgers with her girlfriends on Friday night. Instead, she put her heart into her writing and reporting; two weeks after one photo shoot, in fact, she published an expose of charity embezzlement among one of the campus's biggest fraternities, earning her scorn (and occasional threats) from campus jocks and jerks, and the respect of most everyone else._

_But then her pictures won the attention of a talent scout, who suggested she try out for the Miss Oregon beauty pageant. Priscilla was flattered but reluctant, only agreeing when she learned that it came with a cash prize and a scholarship to Lindenwood University in Missouri. Not seeing any other way to afford graduate school, she pooled together her money with two of her friends', and a small donation from her parents, to apply._

_Priscilla despised being a contestant. She hated being judged on her looks alone, as if nothing else about her mattered. She hated wearing skimpy swimsuits and having to perform talents and tricks to gawking judges like a trained seal. She didn't even like most of the other girls, who were varying degrees of vain and obnoxious, all of whom wanted to win much more than she did._

_Priscilla didn't win: she came in third place, a decent showing for a first-time contestant. Not that she was overly upset at this outcome. But she did attract the attention of young suitors, mostly rich boys (and occasionally older men) looking for a pretty girl and a good time, all of them viewing her as a trophy rather than a proper girlfriend. And one of them was Preston Northwest, who boldly propositioned her outside her dressing room and asked her to lunch._

_He made quite an impression, and not just for his chiseled good looks. Perhaps he talked a bit too much about himself, perhaps his opinions on NAFTA and the Clinton Administration were a bit too strident for her tastes, but she didn't consider those insurmountable problems. She liked his drive and passion, she liked that he had a brain and a dream. She liked that, at least at first, he seemed genuinely interested in her writing and her hopes of becoming a reporter. And, she had to admit, she liked that he had money._

_Not that Priscilla's family was poor, exactly. Her parents, originally from Connecticut, both worked solid 9-to-5 jobs: her father as the foreman at a fiber company, her mother as a bookbinder's secretary. But between her and her older brother, along with their modest house outside Corvallis, money was always tight, and her parents had the bare minimum to put both of them through school. Graduate school - a Master's Degree - was out of the question, at least on their dime. Her grades, while solid, weren't good enough to earn a full-time scholarship. Better to be financially secure than to follow one's heart._

_And maybe Priscilla liked the idea of being a society wife. When Preston first showed her around the family estate in Gravity Falls, her jaw hit the floor. She'd never seen a house so large in her life, aside from some colonial-era buildings she'd visited back in Connecticut as a little girl. She met Preston's parents, who were stern and forbidding, yet seemed to approve of their son's choice for all that._

_So it was a whirlwind courtship, entered into quickly, for reasons good (young love, mutual attraction) and bad (insecurity, fear of being left behind). They became engaged just after Priscilla graduated college, married a few months after that, her dreams of writing put on hold. Sixteen months into their marriage, Priscilla gave birth to Pacifica. And their relationship deteriorated from there._

* * *

_Priscilla couldn't blame her daughter, a jewel of a little girl she loved from birth and smothered and spoiled as much as she could. She could, however, resent Preston, who hated Pacifica's crying as a baby and, in frustration, started ringing a bell to drown her out. As Pacifica grew older, her father noticed that the bell had a mollifying effect on her whenever she lost her temper, and continued doing it until the conditioning became ingrained in her mind. Then he enlisted his servants to do the same even when he wasn't around._

_In hindsight, that should have tipped Priscilla off that she'd made a mistake. Her husband viewed their daughter as something of a liability, a pet or a Thing to be trotted out for photographs and public events, to be appeased when possible and shamed when not. Maybe he resented that Priscilla didn't give him a son, the only child acceptable to a certain breed of narcissistic male, or maybe that's just the way he'd treat **any**  child, regardless of gender._

_The older they got, the harder it became to look past Preston's faults. And the more they rubbed off on her: the more they made her vain and shallow and obsessed with status, the more snobbish and unaccepted of people outside their social circle. The more complacent they made her. The more unable even to enjoy things that she had loved in the past._

_Priscilla slid comfortably into her role at first, enjoying the perks of being a wealthy socialite. She loved clothes, enjoyed the wide array of expensive outfits and jewelry. Unlike the beauty pageant, which made her feel self-conscious and awkward, having clothes that were hers to own made her feel beautiful, happy, comfortable. She enjoyed having endless leisure time, liked indulging her daughter, enjoyed feeling secure. She even liked the social events and parties Preston dragged her to, even if she found most of his peer group boring at best and obnoxious at worst._

_Over time, however, she grew more and more bored, more restless, unable to find fulfillment in pampered wealth and endless social engagements. She tried to take up hobbies which she invariably lost interest in, or failed at, within months, or weeks, or days. She continued playing tennis with her husband, her daughter, with servants and a few friends when she could; increasingly, since she no longer felt like writing, it became her only outlet for her frustration._

_And like many things, it seemed a possible outlet for Priscilla to express herself, to assert her individuality and personhood. Twice, in 2009 and 2010, she thought of applying for an amateur tennis tournament, hosted in Salem by the Lieutenant Governor. The first time, she entrusted the application fee to her husband, who claimed that he lost the money and forgot about it. The second time, not trusting Preston, she applied in person and made it into the tournament._

_To no one's surprise (at least, no one who knew her), she did extremely well. She'd built up a wicked serve over the past few years, and managed to smoke the first few rounds of competitors easily. The frumpy housewives and politicians' wives who played tennis on a lark were no match for Priscilla Northwest! And after she made it to the final round against Mitsy Cranwell, the wife of a State Senator who'd won the tournament four years in a row, she became genuinely excited._

_The event was covered by the society press as one of those fun outings for rich people to experience, and the middle and working classes to observe jealously through magazines and newspapers. But the consensus was that Priscilla Northwest, heretofore the pretty but vacuous thirty-something wife of a minor industrialist, looked like a genuinely gifted player. And so, the night before the final round, she received a phone call._

_"Mrs. Northwest, my name is Tabatha Baker!" a cheerful voice called. "I'm from the United States Tennis Association, Pacific Northwest Region! We're looking for new members to play professionally, and I saw your match against Agatha Wong yesterday! Very impressive - four aces! And you have the form of an Anna Kournikova! We'd love to have you as a member."_

_"Oh my word!" Priscilla said, a little too loud. "I'm flattered, but...I don't think I'm **that**  good. It's just something I've picked up in my spare time."_

_"Hey, I'm not saying that you're gonna be the next Serena Williams. But we sponsor players at all levels, and you could make a splash in the local circuit at the very least. Someone beautiful and talented like yourself has a great chance of making it! What do you say?"_

_Priscilla leaned against the wall, barely containing her excitement. Pacifica, then around ten years old, came out in the hallway. She was going to ask her mom for a snack, but saw her gleeful smile and began hopping up and down, anticipating the great news she'd share in a moment._

_"I'd say...I'm in! Thank you so much!" And she hung up the phone and pumped her fist in excitement._

_"Mom, what's going on?" Pacifica asked. "Tell me, tell me, tell me!"_

_"Pacifica," Priscilla said, beaming at her daughter - a smile Pacifica had rarely seen before, and would never see again. "Your mom's gonna be a professional tennis player!"_

_"Yay!" And Pacifica squeezed her mom in a tight hug. "I'm so happy for you, Mom! You've been so good at tennis for so long, and now people everywhere are gonna realize it."_

_Priscilla kissed her daughter's forehead and messed with her hair. "We'll see, dear! We can hope!"_

_As the girls celebrated, Preston watched from the shadows across the room. And he knew that, however reluctantly, however much it hurt, he'd have to crush his wife's dreams._

* * *

_Preston Northwest was not, at least in his own mind, an evil man. He certainly wasn't a sociopath, despite what his enemies might think; he simply didn't allow petty things like emotion and empathy, regret and remorse to stand in the way of his career or his good name. He was the product of a family that viewed success and prestige as ends to themselves. Even if it meant hurting those closest to him._

_His first response, when he heard Priscilla's news, was naturally to congratulate her. Then, before he could, his mind weighed the options: winning a tournament against the wife of a State Senator, especially one that Preston did extensive business with, could hurt their standing in Oregon's social circles. At the very least it would hurt his short term business opportunities._

_So Priscilla had to lose. As he reasoned it out, there seemed no other option._

_It didn't occur to Preston, as he weighed these ideas, that Marshall Cranwell might not be as much stock in an amateur tennis match as he did. That his wife winning a tournament and becoming a semi-famous player might actually enhance the family's prestige, rather than hurt it. Preston already had a beautiful wife who was widely liked and admired. He didn't want to take a risk, shake the status quo and potentially._

_And perhaps some part of him didn't want her to outshine him, even for a moment. To succeed on her own terms, to be something more than Mrs. Northwest. Though that wasn't something he'd ever admit, even to himself._

_So he hid in a dark corner of their mansion until his wife and daughter departed, still chattering with excitement. Then he snuck into his office and dialed a friend at the USTA with a proposition._

* * *

_Appropriately enough, the next day was sunny and comfortably warm. Priscilla wore a snazzy white shirt with a tennis skirt, which made her look five years younger. And Pacifica wore the same outfit as her mom. They posed together for several photographs, mother and daughter each dressed to impress and ready to win._

_Priscilla spotted Tabatha Baker in the crowd, a trim, middle-aged woman who waved at her. Priscilla started to walk over, until Preston stepped in front of her._

_"My dear, I'm so glad you made it here today!" Preston told her, his voice dramatically loud, for the benefit of spectators._

_"Thank you, Preston," Priscilla responded, hugging him. "It means so much that you're on board with this."_

_Her sincerity and happiness made Preston feel a pang of regret. But he fought it down, as he usually did._

_"If only I could be, my dear," he said, still smiling for the benefit of onlookers. "Unfortunately, Marshall Cranwell is one of my biggest investors, and I can't afford to have you embarrass his wife in front of everyone."_

_"Preston..." Priscilla's mouth dropped open._

_"Just think, Priscilla," Preston said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "It won't do for our family to have Cranwell pull all of us money out of the mudflaps just as we're about to make a profit for the first time in three years. Will it?"_

_And a gleam of menace underlined the last words; a threatening glare twinkled in his eye._

_Priscilla's face dropped in shock. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Preston wanted to her lose on purpose. In front of not only Ms. Baker, but everyone they knew in Oregon._

_"Best of luck, dear," Preston said as he walked off into the crowd, taking Pacifica with him. Then he whispered: "I know you'll do the right thing."_

_Priscilla watched, her stomach twisting in knots as she looked after them. To her chagrin, she saw Preston stand next to Tabatha Baker and start chatting with her...having a pretty good idea what they were talking about. And he saw Pacifica, apparently oblivious, beaming hopefully from the sidelines._

_The right thing? The right thing would be to beat Misty Cranwell and become Priscilla Connolly again, if only for a moment. The right thing would be to show Pacifica that she could, and should follow her dreams and become whoever she wanted to be. To not be defined purely as someone else's trophy._

_Priscilla wondered if she had the strength to do the right thing. But she thought again of the prospect of her daughter, potentially poor and without friends, cruelly yanked out from her social circle by her mother's hand. And, right or not, she made her choice just as the match began._

* * *

_"That was a terrific match, dear," Preston reassured her later on as they returned to the mansion. "You had her on the ropes until the end...Can't believe you double faulted twice in one game."_

_"Just bad luck, I guess," Priscilla said through a pained smile. Inside, she was screaming._

_"Well, these things happen," Preston said off-handedly. "I'm sorry that Mrs. Baker decided not to offer you that sponsorship, too. I know you were looking for to it. I suppose there's always next year."_

_"Yes," Priscilla said mechanically._

_"Daddy, why did Mom have to lose?" Pacifica asked, cutting through her charade._

_"What do you mean, Pacifica?" Preston demanded, shooting his wife an accusing look._

_"You told Mom the right thing to do was not to beat Ms. Cranwell," Pacifica insisted. "And you told Mrs. Baker that she shouldn't let Mom be in the tennis association. Why?"_

_Preston looked to Priscilla, as if demanding that she explain herself to their daughter. Priscilla bit her lip, then looked away shamefaced._

_"Sometimes we have to sacrifice our own dreams for the greater good," Preston insisted, deciding to bite the bullet. "If your mommy had won, she would have been famous and gotten her picture in the magazines. But your daddy's business would have lost a lot of money. And I wouldn't have been able to buy you that new pony I'm getting ready to buy you!"_

_"I don't care about a new pony," Pacifica insisted. "I care about Mom winning! She spent months getting ready for this tournament! She was the best one there! And you wouldn't let her win."_

_"Pacifica..." Preston started._

_"Why do you always treat Mom like this, Daddy?" Pacifica continued. "Why do you think you're the only one who matters? Me and Mommy care too..."_

_As Pacifica continued, Priscilla watched, heartbroken, waiting for a moment to interject. Then she saw Preston reaching into a drawer, and her heart froze as she realized what was about to happen._

_"Preston..." she muttered helplessly._

**_RING! RING! RING!_ **

_And as Preston rang the bell, Pacifica bowed her head and became instantly quiet._

_"Now go to your room like a good girl," Preston ordered her, gently but firmly._

_"Yes, Dad," Pacifica said, before shuffling quietly out of the den._

_Preston put the bell away and turned back to his wife. "I am sorry," he said, with the barest hint of sincerity. He moved forward for a hug, then thought better of it. Instead, he patted her on the shoulder and retired to his study, leaving Priscilla to wallow in her misery._

_And from that moment on, Priscilla Northwest never knew a moment's happiness. She knew, through her husband's cruel action, that she would always belong to him, that anything she did to step out from his shadow would be met with either a velvet glove or an iron fist._

_So she dove deeper into playing tennis - privately. And riding horses - privately. And social events where she did little more than hold her husband's arm and occasionally make small talk. She was pointedly reminded, again and again, that she didn't matter except as an extension of her husband._

_Deprived of anything else, she started obsessing over her looks, the only thing of value which Preston allowed her (indeed, encouraged her) to retain._ _First it was a modest application of hair dye to cover up a few flecks of gray. Then a crash diet and exercise to lose excess weight. Then, just before her 36th birthday, a face lift. Always gently prodded by Preston, who never asked her to do anything, but who always approvingly commented on her latest change, telling her that beauty could never cost too much._

_Anything for Priscilla to remain young and beautiful looking. Even if her beauty became artificial, her face pinched, her hair much lighter than it naturally was, her figure improbably thin._

_This was her life now._

_All she had now was her looks - and her daughter. And she wondered how much longer she could keep those._

* * *

As she stared at that tennis picture, Priscilla made a decision.

She pulled out a cell phone and looked for Pacifica's number. And typed her a text:

_Pacifica - Your dad knows you're in Gravity Falls. Sent Pierre. Be safe and careful. I know you can do this. Love, Mom._

She felt a tear welling up in her eye as she typed this, terrified what might happen to her daughter if Pierre had to drag her back by force. Feeling a shame that she wasn't strong enough to do more. 

At least she gave her daughter a chance to be better. At this point, it was all she had. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Priscilla Northwest: she gets short shrift from Gravity Falls, and even fanfics, which often flesh out even the most inconsequential characters, tend to ignore her (one of the few exceptions I remember made her a witch with telepathic powers...yikes!). Aside from a brief reference by Alex Hirsch to her modeling career, we know nothing about who she is or what she wants, beyond being Pacifica's mom and Preston's wife. Which, if nothing else, leaves her open to authorial interpretation. 
> 
> Consider this story then, and this chapter in particular, an effort on my part to rectify this oversight. Priscilla's much more interesting to me as a tormented Dawn Levov (from American Pastoral) type than the vapid Bride of Trump simulacrum portrayed on the show. May you find happiness in some future stories, Priscilla...you deserve it.


	8. Chapter 8

Pacifica couldn't help it. Despite the anxiety stoked by Dipper's tales about foxfire and mysterious vanishings, she kept leafing through the book he'd checked out from the library, reading story after story about strange lights, about people disappearing into thin air without a trace.

She kept returning to a story about a man who disappeared into thin air while crossing a field. How he was suddenly waving to a friend when he vanished in the blank of an eye. How, for a long time afterwards, his family could hear his disembodied voice begging for help from some unseen plane of existence. How the grass turned yellow and burned into a weird circle around the spot where he'd last been seen.

Stories like that made Pacifica shiver, wondering how it was even possible, and how much she was courting death by helping Dipper out. But then she wondered, given her current predicament, if vanishing into nothing was really the worst thing that could happen to her.

Maybe that's what attracted her to Dipper, more than anything: he offered an escape. She could forget about all the shittiness of her family and their tormented home life to worry about weird monsters and ghosts and gravitational anomalies and mysterious spook lights. Dangerous, sure, but exhilarating. And fun, at least when she did it with her friend and favorite ex. A moment's terror was far preferable to creeping, crushing existential dread.

They were upstairs in the Shack's bedroom together, munching on some wraps they'd snagged from a sandwich shop, making final preparations for the night. Dipper still wasn't sure what to expect, and debate what instruments to bring along with them. The Spectrometer was a given, of course. But what good would that be if it were an alien or a faerie or something else? Would a magnet gun have any impact against an inter-dimensional being? It could take down most any earthly creature, but aliens and demons were another story.

"Dipper, relax!" Pacifica told him. She laughed at herself, knowing how ridiculous her scolding sounded when she was terrified by a story in a book. "You've faced down much more dangerous things than some shiny lights in the forest. Take a chill pill." She patted the floor next to her; after a moment, Dipper stopped pacing and plopped down.

"Sorry," he muttered. "It's not that I'm scared...Well, maybe I'm a little scared. It's more that I don't know what these things are, and I don't know how to get ready for them! They could be just about anything, and..."

"I'm sure you'll manage!" Pacifica assured him. "When have you ever not been able to handle something? Like, all the time I've known you you haven't let anything keep you and Mabel down!"

"Guess you're right," Dipper admitted.

The two friends looked at each other for a moment, sharing a smile.

"Besides, I'm here!" Pacifica added, haughtily puffing out her chest and casting her ex a side eye. "And there's no way I'm gonna let you get us in any kind of trouble."

"Thanks, I feel so much better," he muttered.

But he did. It meant a lot to him that he and Pacifica were patching things up, however imperfectly, however much awkwardness and lingering affection remained.

He'd felt bad that their relationship hadn't worked out, and even worse that they hadn't stayed in touch since. From their conversation today, he figured it was less fear or dislike or resentment than mutual misunderstanding. An inability to talk, an unwillingness to be honest - a fear of consequences that probably existed only in one's head - ruined so much. Look at what happened with Wendy.

As long as it's okay now, he told him, watching Pacifica bite off a big chunk of her turkey wrap. And it looks like it will be. So long as we're honest with each other.

So long as nothing goes wrong tonight.

* * *

 

_The longer Dipper and Pacifica were a couple, the harder their differences became to reconcile._

_"Dipper," Pacifica said during one of their movie nights at the Shack, "couldn't you have picked a decent movie?"_

_"But we always watch terrible horror movies during movie night," Dipper insisted._

_"Do we have to?" Pacifica asked. "This may astonish you, Mason Pines, but there are actual, decent movies or shows out there we could watch."_

_"Ugh. Last time we had this conversation, you tried making me watch Downton Abbey."_

_"Downton Abbey is an amazing show! You just can't appreciate it!"_

_"I don't know why you'd need to watch a show about rich snobs when you could just stay home and live it."_

_Things grew even worse when food arrived. Dipper had ordered pizza from his favorite takeout place - nice, greasy, pepperoni-saturated pizza._

_"Do we have to eat pizza every time we watch a movie?" Pacifica asked, her voice coming perilously close to a whine._

_"Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Snob," Dipper snapped, with more venom than he intended. "We don't have any fast foie gras or takeout filet mignon places here."_

_"I don't mean that," Pacifica insisted defensively. "I just mean, something different for a change would be nice."_

_Mabel looked on helplessly, hiding behind a pillow as her brother and one of her best friends fought. Any time she tried to insert herself in the argument, it ended badly for everyone._

_Things were even worse when Dipper visited Pacifica. There wasn't only her parents, whom he grew to despise even more. Unlike Pacifica, he couldn't see Priscilla's inner pain and only saw a vapid, shallow trophy wife who was only as polite as custom required. And Preston, well, he always found a way to impress upon Dipper that he and his daughter were superior to him._

_"This painting is vintage Antoine Watteau," he said during one visit, showing Dipper a French pastoral work in their living room. "It dates back to the 1710s. One of a kind!"_

_"Neat," Dipper muttered, sick of seeing invaluable paintings and furniture and decorations and sculptures that only proved their owner's wealth._

_As if to punish him for lack of awe and deference, Preston scowled and twisted the needle:_

_"I paid $250,000 for this work on vacation in Bern," Preston said. "I later had it appraised by a dealer here in the States and its real worth is $150,000. Can you imagine? Some Swiss shyster jewed me out of one hundred grand."_

_It took a moment for Dipper to realize what he'd said. Because some things, even with all he'd experienced, could shock even him._

_"...Excuse me?"_

_"Oh, I'm sorry, boy," Preston said with exaggerated insincerity, his face showing pleasure that he'd struck a nerve. "I must learn to guard my tongue."_

_Thus went their usual interactions. Preston seemed to relish invoking Dipper's background, knowing it was a sore point with the young man. Even when he showed more restraint, he still found ways to needle Dipper's dress or hairstyle or lack of wealth, to build himself up as superior in every way. A way of reminding Dipper that, no matter what Pacifica felt about him, he wouldn't matter._

_But it wasn't just Preston. Because Dipper always seemed awkward, always hated dressing up and playing to Pacifica's strengths. And while Pacifica wasn't nearly so bigoted and gauche as her father, her obsession with etiquette and looking nice became nearly as irritating._

_"Sit up straight, Dipper! You look like a hunchback when you slump down like that."_

_"You're holding that knife wrong, Dip. Cut like this!"_

_"That's a salad fork, Dipper! Don't they teach you about silverware in Piedmont?"_

_"Where did you get your hair done, a Supercuts? I'll have to set you up with a real barber sometime!"_

_Thus a thousand corrections, a million minor indignities accumulated every evening._

_He started wondering how much he really liked Pacifica. He started to think whatever her good qualities, however beautiful she was, he didn't like her as a girlfriend. Dating seemed to bring out the worst in her. And, if he were honest, in him: his innate insecurities and resentments were stoked, deliberately by Preston, unknowingly by Pacifica, amplified by his own personality, reluctant to change his own habits even for the sake of someone he ostensibly loved._

_They only really seemed to click on missions, when their differences disappeared as they tracked a monster. Those times were invariably fun. It was sad that they couldn't find common ground so easily in more casual settings._

_What had initially seemed like a beautiful thing unraveled before it had really begun. And it only got worse._

* * *

 

"Hi Mabel, I'm sorry to call you on your fun Charlie day, but...I needed to talk to you."

"Any time, Dip Dop! What's up?"

"Wow...I don't know the best way to come out with this...Pacifica is back in Gravity Falls."

"Really? That's great! How is she?"

"She could be better...sounds like her parents are driving her up the wall. What else is new? But, anyway..."

"Oh, no! I guess that Oedipal drama's never gonna be resolved."

"Probably not. But, hey, listen, the reason I'm calling...Pacifica is going on a mission with me tonight."

"Cool, cool! Glad you have someone to keep you company when you chase that foxfire stuff! You know you'd be doomed without someone watching your back.

"I dunno about that. I'm just, you know..."

"What?"

"Her being here's making me worry about, you know..."

There was a silence on the other end of the line.

"Mabel, are you there?"

Dipper heard a sigh from his sister. Then, after a moment, Mabel started to lecture him, using a tone that was patient but firm, like a teacher lecturing an errant pupil.

"Dip, I know that you guys have a history, and it's hard to ignore it. But I also remember when you and Pacifica used to date. Remember the fights? Remember how you could never agree on what to eat or what movies to watch? Remember how you would insult each other over every little thing you could? Remember how you hated her parents and how she thought Grunkle Stan was gross?"

He couldn't argue with any of that.

"Wait...does Pacifica seem like she's coming on to you?"

"Not really...I mean, she flirts a little, but no more than she usually does."

"That's just her personality, Dipper. I mean, does she seem like she's actually trying to make out with you or anything?"

"Nothing...overt," he said cautiously. He'd always been bad at reading other peoples' signals, especially girls.

"Then maybe you're worrying over nothing," Mabel suggested. "I mean, let's face facts: you do that all the time."

"Guess you're right," Dipper admitted. "I just wanna be careful, you know? Things are just starting out with Wendy, and then she comes back into my life...our lives, potentially...she indicated she may want to stay in Gravity Falls long term, or at least until school starts in the fall. And..."

"Do you still want to get together with her?"

Dipper thought about this question carefully. Then he said:

"No. I mean...I would be lying if I said I didn't still think about her occasionally, still think back to that summer and everything that went wrong and the few things that went right. But, I mean, that was two years ago. And I'm dating my dream girl now! But, I mean, Pacifica's Pacifica and...It's hard to be sure."

"Bro, bro, bro. You've lived all your life with an amazing twin sister and you still have so much to learn about girls. Let me ask you this...did you talk to Wendy?"

Dipper froze. That thought didn't even occur to him.

"No...But, I mean, she indicated that she didn't want to hear from me this weekend."

"Hmmph. Did you guys have a fight?"

"A little one," Dipper admitted, thinking back to the previous night. "But nothing too major."

"Did you apologize?"

"Yes."

"Did you apologize again?"

"If you mean when I woke up this morning, yeah."

"Well...okay. But if you're feeling awkward or guilty or whatever, talk to your girlfriend. Wendy will understand - she has guy friends. Even ones she used to date! She's the only one you need to worry about, except maybe yourself."

"Guess you're right," Dipper admitted with a chuckle. "Thanks, Mabel."

"Any time, Broseph," she said cheerily. "Now, if you'll excuse me, it's almost time for Boeing Boeing to begin begin!"

"Oh, I'm sorry! You'll have to tell me all about it when you get back!"

"Oh believe me, you'll hear about everything! And I look forward to hearing about your spooky lights or Firefox or whatever, too."

"You bet. Bye, Mabel, and...thanks. I mean it."

"No worries, Dip. Love ya!"

"Love you too!"

Dipper smiled as she hung up. How did he end up with the world's greatest sister?

She was right - he should probably talk to Wendy, just to clear the air. His fingers hovered over her name on his contacts list. But his hand trembled, and he hesitated.

And despite Mabel's words, despite his pep talk to himself earlier about communication...he worried about what Wendy might say. He worried about her getting angry for interrupting her day with friends. He worried more about the moment's annoyance or discomfort she'd feel than the possibility that it being dishonest might do more lasting damage.

Maybe later, he told himself, putting his phone away.

* * *

Pacifica's face dropped as she read her mom's text. Suddenly everything wonderful about the day disappeared under a cloud of gloom and panic.

When Dipper reentered the room, she sprung to her feet. "Dipper, my dad is sending someone to get me!" she shouted.

"What? Who?"

"My mom texted me," she said. "I think he's sending Pierre."

"Pierre...I don't really remember that one."

"I mean, he's not a tough guy, he's not going to kill us or shock us with cattle prods or whatever like Baldy. But still...that means my dad knows, and he doesn't want me out here. And if he can send one guy after me..."

"Hey, it's all right," Dipper said. "We're not going to let anything happen to you."

"We?" Pacifica demanded. And Dipper dropped his reticence and whipped out his own phone. He typed a quick text:

Wendy - sorry to bug you - Pacifica's in town. Running from her dad. Big trouble. May need help.

"Wendy?" Pacifica asked. "What's she gonna do?"

"You know Wendy, right?" Dipper responded. "If we run into any kind of trouble, she'll be able to back us up."

"I guess you're right," Pacifica muttered. Though she still looked upset.

"What's wrong?" Dipper asked, trying to comfort her.

"I just...I wish I was strong enough to fight back myself," Pacifica said, looking away from her friend. "Wish I didn't need you and Mabel and Wendy to come running to my rescue every time my parents become intolerable." She sobbed into her hands a few times.

"It's not a question of your needing us," Dipper assured her. "You're plenty strong! If you weren't, you wouldn't have stood up to your dad. You wouldn't have run away from home in the first place. You wouldn't know, or think to ask for help. And it's no problem. I'm your friend. Mabel's your friend. Wendy's your friend. That's what friends do. We help our friends when they're in trouble."

"Thanks," Pacifica said, though she looked only half-convinced.

Dipper's phone buzzed. He opened it up and saw a text:

Dip - thanks for heads up. Let me know if there's trouble.

"See there?" Dipper said, showing her the text. "Wendy's got our backs, too."

Pacifica hugged him gratefully. He was surprised just how tight she embraced him, then awkwardly returned the hug for a long moment.

"Thank God for Wendy," Pacifica said, drying the tears in her eyes. "What would we do without her?"

"Yeah," Dipper muttered in response.

Their hug lasted another ten seconds, long enough to be both comforting and awkward. Then they pulled apart and wandered sheepishly around the room.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Pacifica announced.

Dipper looked up in surprise. "Huh?"

Pacifica reached over and hefted Dipper's bag of anomaly-hunting tools over her shoulder. She strained at its weight, but managed to keep it upright.

"Dunno about you, but I'm not waiting around for Pierre to show up," she insisted. "In the meantime, we have some foxfire to check out!"

Then the bag fell and pulled her, yelping to the ground. Dipper laughed and helped her up, then grabbed the bag himself.

"You okay?" he asked her.

"Dipper, I'm perfectly all right," she insisted, brushing him off playfully. "But thanks. Now, enough fumbling around and being awkward and Dipperish. Let's do this!"

Dipper smiled at her, reassured.

"My thoughts exactly."


	9. Chapter 9

_Pacifica mostly remembered her relationship with Dipper in scattered moments, alternating points of pleasure and pain, joy and regret that only loosely connected. In contrast, she remembered their final day as a couple with nightmare clarity._ _She replayed that night over and over in her head, blaming herself for what went wrong, wondering why she was so stupid. Wondering if Dipper could ever  **really**  forgive her, even now._

_August 1st, 2016 began with Pacifica inviting Dipper for dinner at a fancy restaurant - on her dime. They had recently had another fight during a recent mission, when Dipper insulted Pacifica's inability to keep pace with a Goatman through the woods. He apologized, but it seemed an ill portent - even their monster hunts, the one activity where they always seemed to be on the same page, weren't much fun any more._

_He seemed fine with the plan, and dressed up in his Sunday best as usual (or as close an approximation as he could manage), with his hair slicked back and the same borrowed suit he always seemed to trot out whenever they went out. Pacifica wore a mauve dress with a dark violet scarf around her neck, along with her usual assortment of jewelry._

_They went to a swanky surf and turf restaurant in Salem, where Pacifica ordered grilled swordfish. And Dipper, like a chump, ordered a hamburger with truffle fries. Pacifica couldn't help shooting him a look as the waiter took away their menus._

_"What?" Dipper asked._

_"Nothing," she said. "It's just...you really come to a place like this and order a hamburger?"_

_"Maybe I **want**  a hamburger," he insisted, trying to keep his temper._

_"At least you ordered the truffle fries," Pacifica responded, trying to make a joke of it. But he didn't laugh, instead scowling with more anger than she'd ever seen from him before. It broke her heart, but she lowered her eyes and said nothing._

_The evening dragged on afterwards, intensely awkward, with only scattered bursts of subdued chatting. Pacifica tried making conversation a few times...she asked Dipper about what he was planning to do when he and Mabel got back to school, whether Mabel had finally found her Epic Summer Romance (she **had**  been dating, sort of, a guy she met at the Arcade during an incident with a haunted pinball machine), the usual kind of small talk. Dipper barely responded._

_And so they ate their food in silence. Pacifica couldn't enjoy the food or her surroundings or her clothes. How could she, when she couldn't even enjoy being with her boyfriend? She felt sad, empty, alone. She needed a way to reconnect with Dipper, to get back on his good side, or they were through._

_And that's why she decided on a course of action she would instantly, and forever after regret._

* * *

"Looks like a nice evening for spook hunting," Dipper said, marveling at the beautiful twilight sky, dark blue and green dappled with yellow from the fading sun.

It was clear, warm but not uncomfortably so, and fireflies were already starting to dance along the ground. Unfortunately, mosquitoes were also buzzing around, and Pacifica slapped a particularly large one that landed on her neck.

"Oh,  _gross_!" Pacifica said, looking at the mess in her hand.

"What's wrong?" Dipper said. Then he saw. "Oh, yuck!"

"Yuck indeed! I think that sucker already drank some of my blood. Look how thick it is."

"Just wipe it off and let's go," Dipper said.

"Wipe it off  _where_?" Pacifica wondered, not wanting to ruin her golf shirt. But Dipper had already started down the forest path. Muttering under her breath, she discreetly rubbed the bug mess on the back of her skirt, making a mental note to wash it as soon as she got back home.

 _If_  she got back home. In the ick of the moment, she'd forgotten.

This is why you two never hit it off, Pacifica scolded herself. This, right here. Freaking out over a mosquito. I'll bet Dipper has dozens of the bugs crawling all over him and he isn't saying anything.

"Ahh, stupid bugs!" she heard a smack up ahead. And giggled to herself.

Maybe not.

Still, it was all she could do to keep focused on the task at hand. Because even a minor thing like a mosquito bite, and her reaction to it, could trigger the most unpleasant memories.

* * *

_More than anything, what Pacifica remembered was how **terrified**  Dipper looked when she made her move. She kissed him at first, which he numbly accepted, then started to caress his torso, which made him fidget and groan uncomfortably, but which he didn't actively resist. Swallowing any remaining doubt hen she took the plunge, figuring that she'd gone this far, might as well get on with it._

_So she unzipped his fly. And slowly started to lower her head towards it..._

_It took forever for Dipper to realize what was happening. When he did, he reacted with a horror Pacifica couldn't have possibly anticipated._

_"Pacifica! What are you...? Oh my **God**!"_

_Dipper pushed her away violently...so violently that she hit her head off the car door. She cried out._

_"Ow! Dipper!"_

_"Pacifica!" She looked at Dipper and froze, spotting a look of mixed fear and revulsion that broke her heart._

_In that horrifying moment, Pacifica knew it was over._

_"Dipper...I'm sorry! I thought...I thought..."_

_"You **didn't**  think!" Dipper shouted. "You never think about anything but yourself!"_

_"That's not fair!" Pacifica protested. And it really **wasn't**  fair. Though in that moment, she couldn't think to say anything more._

_"Why would you think...we had just about the **worst**  date in human history tonight, and you want to...Jesus!"_

_"Dipper, I just thought...I thought it might make us closer." She forced a smile on her face, which Dipper coldly shut down._

_"Seriously? Learn to read the room, Pacifica."_

_And he turned away from her and stared out the window. Pacifica sunk down in her seat, trying not to break down in front of him._

_They were silent for a long time. A minute. Two minutes. Maybe five or ten._

_"Dipper..." Pacifica began._

_"Take me home," Dipper insisted._

_"But Dipper..." Pacifica said helplessly._

_"Take me home," he repeated._

_"I'm sorry."_

_"Home, now."_

_Pacifica started to say something else, but the words caught in her throat. So she tapped on the glass divider, signalling for the valet to drive Dipper back to Gravity Falls. The two didn't speak or look at each other the rest of the way home. Dipper scowled, seething in anger and resentment. And Pacifica looked forlorn, depressed, numb out of her window. Terrified at what lie in store. Angry at herself for what she'd done._

_When they arrived at the Shack, Dipper hopped out of the car and slammed the door. He didn't even glance back at Pacifica as he stormed into the house, taking off his suit jacket even before he got inside. Pacifica just stared after him, watching her last chance at happiness walk away._

* * *

Pierre arrived in Gravity Falls around the same time Dipper and Pacifica left. He had only the fainest idea of where they might be, and knew it would seem suspicious if he started asking questions. He wasn't armed, and didn't have any particular self-defense skills to rely on. He resented Mr. Northwest placing him in this situation, but he paid him big bucks (well, maybe not  **so**  big lately) not to ask questions and to do whatever.

So he whipped out his cell phone and pulled up a triangulation program. He entered a few coordinates along with Pacifica's number and waited as it processed.

It gave him the coordinates, which pointed to somewhere in the woods.

Great.

Pierre sighed and set off, following the indicator on the phone. He'd never been to Gravity Falls before, but he knew from talking with the Northwests, and their other servants, what kind of trouble he might expect. Trouble he wasn't in any way prepared for. He hoped Pacifica would, if nothing else, be smarter than him and stay out of harm's way.

Though if she was really smart, he wondered, would she be running away in the first place?

* * *

_Somehow, Pacifica managed to hold herself together for the whole long ride home. She put up a brave front before her parents and her servants as she entered the mansion._

_"You're back late," Preston said mildly, without real reproach. Priscilla smiled._

_"How did it go, hon?" Priscilla asked._

_"It went...awful," she said. "Dipper broke up with me."_

_Her parents acted with surprise. Priscilla showed concern and sympathy, but Preston, after the initial shock faded, seemed to sigh with ill-concealed relief._

_"Took him long enough," he said._

_"What's **that**  supposed to mean, Dad?"_

_"He wasn't right for you, that's all," Preston said. "I know young love is confusing, but believe me. Sometimes your father knows best. And believe me, someone like Dipper Pines isn't good for you. You need someone more your type."_

_Pacifica had patiently put up with Preston's endless needling of her boyfriend all summer. Now she had no reason to accept it._

_"Fuck you, Dad!" she said, the blast of her profanity sending her parents reeling backwards with shock. She stormed away, leaving the effect of her outburst, long in coming, hanging in the air._

_She didn't feel any better for having said it, not really. After stalking down the hallway, she locked herself in her room and broke down crying. It was all she could do._

_She cringed when she heard a knock on her door._

_"Go away!" Pacifica wailed._

_"Pacifica, it's your mother," a voice called._

_"Mom, can't you leave me alone?" she asked, tears streaming onto her pillow._

_"Pacifica...can we talk? There's something I need to say."_

_Pacifica sniffled and groaned, burying her face within her hair. She heard the door latch unlock, and Priscilla slowly entered the room._

_"Honey, do you want to talk about what happened?"_

_Pacifica let a sardonic chuckle slip out between her sobs. Since when did her Mom care about her persona life? Since when did they have mom-to-daughter talks?_

_"Pacifica...I'm sorry. I know that your father made it very hard on you and Dipper."_

_She brushed some of Pacifica's hair away, trying to see her face. Her daughter responded by burying her head deeper into the cover._

_"If I were perfectly honest, I never especially cared for him either," Priscilla admitted. "He always seemed a little smug in the way he acted towards us."_

_Dipper, smug? Maybe. But wouldn't **you**  be smug if you were dating someone with the Parents From Hell?_

_"But that doesn't make what your father said and did right."_

_Then why didn't you **SAY SOMETHING**!? Pacifica demanded silently. This helpless, post facto sympathy wasn't doing any good._

_"What matters is what you feel," Priscilla told her. "What you feel." She repeated the phrase vacantly, as if it were an incantation, some kind of breakthrough in her own mind. Not that her daughter noticed._

_"I know I'm not always the greatest mother to you, Pacifica," she admitted. "But if you want to talk..."  
_

_"What do **you**  know about it?" Pacifica said. The eternal whine of heartbroken, egotistical teenagers everywhere, but somehow more potent from Pacifica._

_"You think I've never broken up with a boy?" Priscilla snapped, sounding angry rather than understanding. "I was your age once too, you know."_

_Pacifica wasn't having it. "I don't need your fake sympathy, Mom. Dipper dumped me and it's all because...because...because of **me**!"_

_And she finally raised her head and cried into her mother's shoulder. Priscilla looked around awkwardly, not used to such open displays of emotion from her daughter._

_"I'm sure that's not true," Priscilla said. "You are a wonderful girl, and anyone, Dipper or otherwise, should be happy to have you."_

_"Love doesn't work that way, Mom!" Pacifica lectured._

_"And you're suddenly an expert in love?" Priscilla said._

_"I think I know more about it than you and Dad," Pacifica harrumphed. And that accusation stung Priscilla, because she wondered how true it was._

_Instead of challenging her daughter, she fumbled towards a different approach._

_"Why do you think it's your fault that Dipper dumped you?"_

_"Do I have to talk about it?" Pacifica asked._

_"No, you don't **have**  to," Priscilla said. She looked away, feeling a little disappointed, a little embarrassed. She reflected on how easy it would be to just walk out, to let Pacifica wallow in her grief, and their relationship would be the same. Proper but aloof, distant, with little more than an outward show of affection. And Pacifica could one more resentment to her lifetime collection._

_"Pacifica...you're old enough now that you should be more independent. I mean, when I was sixteen I practically tried to bolt out the door every time my parents turned their backs. But there are still a lot of things that...I mean, I'm here if you want to talk."_

_And Pacifica stopped pouting and looked at her mom. Priscilla wore a small but heartfelt smile, the most sincere one Pacifica had seen since she was a little girl._

_"Thanks, Mom," Pacifica said. "I just think this is something...I'd rather deal with it by myself, for now."_

_"Okay," Priscilla said, hugging her daughter. "You know where to find me."_

_And after a moment she stood up, clutching Pacifica's hand, then slowly let it slip away as she exited the room._

_Pacifica still felt devastated over what had happened. But her mom's show of affection, rare and fumbling as it was, made her feel a tiny bit better. Even if she didn't feel comfortable sharing all the intimate details with her._ _It had been years since she'd felt like her Mom was a real mom, and not just her dad's wife. And she couldn't help feeling good over that._

_But that fleeting moment of comfort gave way to sadness. She thought about calling Dipper, or at least texting him, but decided against it. She threw her phone in a drawer, refusing to face the consequences. She wasn't crying any more; she mostly felt numb and empty. Alone._

_And she spent the rest of the night sitting on her bed, wondering if she could ever be happy again._

* * *

"I think this is the spot," Dipper called, cutting through the haze of Pacifica's thoughts.

It was almost completely dark now. Dipper turned on a flashlight so they could make their way through the forest. They could hear crickets chirping, animals rustling in the brush, an owl hooting in the distance.

Pacifica saw a weird greenish light glowing through the bushes ahead. And gasped.

"Dipper..." She pointed. Dipper sprang into an action pose, magnet gun at the ready, then instantly relaxed when he spotted the light.

"It's all right," he said. "I don't think this is what we're looking for."

"How can you be sure?" Pacifica demanded, holding back. "I mean, what else would cause a weird light in the woods? That's exactly what we're looking for!"

"A bunch of things," Dipper said, advancing slowly. "Let's check it out."

Pacifica followed slowly behind him, still unsure. As she followed Dipper through the line of bushes she winced, not only at the leaves and nettles cutting against her skin but with the fear that an alien or demon or interdimensional fireball awaited them on the other side.

Instead, when she burst through she saw Dipper examining some rotting logs along the ground. To Pacifica's shock, they were glowing.

"Just as I suspected," Dipper said softly. "This is a  _kind_  of foxfire, I guess, just not what we're looking for."

"Wait, so the wood is glowing?" Pacifica still didn't understand.

"Not the wood per se," Dipper answered. He bent down and shined a flashlight against one of the logs. As the light hit it, the green faded away and she saw small orange-brown clumps of fungus mottling the wood.

" _Panellus pusillus_ ," Dipper said authoritatively. "It's a kind of mushroom that has biolumenscent qualities." He turned his light away and the log flashed green again. Pacifica thought it looked like Christmas lights.

"That's incredible!" Pacifica marveled, bending down to take a closer look. "Why do they glow?"

"Nobody's entirely sure," Dipper said. "Some kind of chemical reaction generated in the fungus. Ford says they probably use it to attract insects or something to help spread and pollinate their spores."

"Huh." Pacifica enjoyed being able to take pleasure from something so simple as some shiny mushrooms. For a moment she was transported into a world where you didn't need to be rich, or sophisticated, or have a decent father, or even to be dating anyone at that particular moment, to be happy.

That obviously couldn't last.

"Pacifica, over here!" Dipper called. And Pacifica snapped out of her fungal reverie, seeing her friend in a small cluster of weeds.

"This is where Tom Burgoyne said he was when it happened," Dipper said, shining his flashlight at the plants. And revealing a large circle burned in the ground.

Pacifica instantly thought of the book they'd been reading earlier, and gasped.

"It's almost like a crop circle or something," Dipper said. "Only it didn't flatten the grass or anything, it just burnt this ring into the ground."

"Do you think they'll appear here again?" Pacifica asked.

"Not sure," Dipper admitted. "I only spoke to Burgoyne. The stories from the other two witnesses didn't really give a precise location, beyond being in this general area."

Pacifica looked around, partly from fear, partly looking for a clue or hint about what to do next. Then she spotted a small, grassy hill beyond the reeds, illuminated by the Moon.

"Dipper, maybe we can head over there," Pacifica said. "I mean, it's the high ground, right? Will give us a good vantage point."

"Good call," Dipper said, looking up. He stood still, accidentally staring at Pacifica as a gust of wind ruffled her shirt. She arched an eyebrow.

"What are  _you_  looking at,  **Mason**?" she said.

"Umm, ladies first," Dipper sputtered. "Plus, you spotted it."

"You can't wait for me to do  **everything**  for you," Pacifica huffed, pushing him out of the way as she walked through the weeds. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a really tough chapter to write, and I hope it turned out okay. Mostly I'm concerned about appearing to slut-shame Pacifica, which is NOT my intent. Rather, Dipper rejected her because a) she wanted sex for the wrong reasons (a quick relationship fix) and b) he wasn't interested or ready for it.


	10. Chapter 10

The wind picked up, ruffling Dipper and Pacifica's hair and clothing as they walked up the hill. Dipper took note of some mushrooms and plant growth (none of these, sadly, glowing) as he went, lugging his small bag of paranormal tricks with him. Pacifica, not so encumbered, beat him to the top and stood, hands on her hips, silently boastful.

"This is a nice view," she said as she reached down, pulling Dipper up. And it was. They could see most of the woods surrounding them, the water tower and some of the town's higher building. In the far distance, the waterfall sparkled in the moonlight.

Dipper opened his bag, fidgeting with his spectrometer and other gadgets. Pacifica sat on the ground, willing to take a rest.

"It's almost 10 pm," she said. "How much longer should we wait?"

"The sunrise is at 6:11 am, according to my solar calendar," Dipper said. "So, eight hours to go."

"Eight hours? We aren't going to camp out here all night, are we?"

"I hope not," Dipper said. "I mean, we didn't bring any tents or sleeping bags or..."

"Should have come prepared," Pacifica teased. "I bet  _Wendy_  would have known to bring that stuff."

"Wendy would have brought her ax and made a shelter out of wood and leaves," Dipper said.

Pacifica made a disgusted face, and the two sat quietly for a long moment, looking at the stars. Pacifica's hair blew in the breeze, and she struggled to keep it out of her mouth. Dipper couldn't help chuckling at her.

"Don't you ever tie your hair back or anything?" he said. "Would be a lot easier when we do stuff like this."

"Ugh, you  **always**  have something mean to say about my hair!" Pacifica complained. "It's too long, it's too thick, it's too blonde, it's fake..."

"I never said that it's too blonde..."

"Whatever. Maybe we can talk about  **your**  hair, Dip," she snapped, looking positively vicious. "Looks all unruly and curly and a complete mess. Maybe you need a date with my stylist!"

"My hair isn't my best feature," Dipper admitted crankily. "I mean, so you've told me, like a million times. Anyway, I'm not saying that I  _don't_  like your hair, just that it would be more practical to tie it in a ponytail or something when we're out in the woods doing stuff like this."

"Guess you're right," Pacifica admitted, calming down. "I mean, it does tend to get all sweaty and messy when we run into a creature of some kind. But think about it, Dip. Would I be me if I did anything practical?"

Dipper couldn't think of an answer to that, so he just nodded and stared at the ground.

The two sat silently for a long moment, listening to the crickets chirp, the wind whispering through the woods, the far-off cry of an angry owl.

They didn't see it at first. They rose silently behind them, barely visible against the moonlight. Dipper turned his head slightly towards Pacifica, caught the green glow out of the corner of his eye...

And screamed, scrambling to his feet. Pacifica looked up and gasped.

There they were. Three globes, orange-green in color, hovering about fifteen feet above them. Making no noise, no movements...

Pacifica thought they looked like flares, or weird balloons. Dipper, on the other hand, saw in them something sinister...like they were living, thinking beings watching them.

"What should we do?" Pacifica whispered, her voice barely audible.

Dipper didn't answer. He reached for his spectrometer, turning it on as quickly as his hands could work it.

Still they hovered. Still they didn't make any noise, any movement.

The spectrometer didn't detect anything. "These aren't ghosts," he muttered, more to himself than Pacifica. The words sent a chill down her spine.

"Then what  **are**  they?" Pacifica demanded.

Still they hovered. Watching. Waiting.

_Thinking?_

Finally, Pacifica couldn't stand the tension any more. She slowly got to her feet and faced the objects.

"What  **are**  you?" she shouted at them. "Are you, like, swamp gas or something? Are you a fairy or an alien or...I don't know, what else could you be?"

Still they hovered.

"Don't just sit there glowing like that!" she scolded. "Let us know what you are! If there's anyone home, say something! Don't be all mysterious."

"Pacifica, I don't think..." Dipper tried to interrupt, disbelieving that Pacifica was trying to  _lecture_  the foxfire. If it was a natural phenomenon (though Dipper no longer believed that likely), it wouldn't do any good. If it wasn't...what response did she  **expect**?

Always a Northwest, he thought.

Two of the globes disappeared, fading into nothing. The third globe, however, remained. In fact it grew bigger, brighter and rose higher in the sky, as if it had absorbed the energy of the other two.

Still it hovered. Still it made no noise.

Dipper and Pacifica waited.

One minute. Two. Three...

Finally, something snapped in Pacifica. She couldn't take it any more.

She didn't think about what happened. It wasn't a conscious decision. It was instinct - pure panic, the kind of panic that accompanied a lack of understanding, an unknown enemy - overtook her.

She started running down the hill, away from the light. As fast as she could. Without looking back.

"Pacifica!" Dipper said, having not moved. "Wait a minute..."

He looked up and saw the globe start to move, floating forward like a giant green soap bubble. It floated over his head for a long moment, as if studying him, then continued floating down the hill. Chasing after Pacifica.

"Pacifica, no!" Dipper shouted, leaping to his feet. Then he hesitated, fishing around in his bag for his magnet gun. By the time he back up, gun at the ready, Pacifica and the foxfire were practically out of sight, rushing towards the treeline, the evident safety of the forest.

"Oh, shit!" Dipper muttered. He started to run, then tripped over his spectrometer and went tumbling down the hill. He his head struck a rock; he felt a blast of pain, a rush of nausea, a swirl of fear and confusion...

Then he blacked out.

* * *

Pacifica didn't look back as she ran. She didn't need to. She knew instinctively that the foxfire was chasing her.

Pacifica had been scared before, many times. But it was rare for her to react in blind panic.

Something about the light struck her as dangerous. Evil. Something she couldn't fight, only outrun. And maybe not even that.

Though she'd certainly try.

She managed to reach the treeline. Her pants became snagged on a thorn. She frantically pulled it off, miraculously managing not to tear it. Then one of her sneakers came off. She hobbled on one foot until she thought to kick the other shoe off.

She felt mud beneath her toes as she ran. The ground was still wet from several days of rain. She half-worried that she would sink into a bog or a swamp somewhere. But that seemed less dangerous than the Foxfire.

She daren't look behind her. She knew if she did, It would catch up to her. And who knows what would happen then?

Her foot caught in a hole - a rabbit's burrow, maybe? It took her a long moment to pry her foot free. And as she did, she stumbled and fell backwards over a log. The log bristling with the luminescent fungus, illuminating her for her predator.

At that moment, despite herself, she looked up.

And there it was. The Foxfire. Hovering, big and green and ever-silent above her. Watching, floating, thinking. Silent.

Pacifica clambered to her feet, felt the urge to run. Tried to make herself run. Willed her legs to move. Readied her body to run.

She couldn't move. Couldn't think.

She stared at the globe, hypnotized by its eerie beauty. Her eyes grew wide, her mind emptied of thought.

She thought she detected a faint, barely discernible hum as she stared at the globe. As if it was analyzing Pacifica's thoughts, figuring out what to do with her.

She dropped to her knees, still staring at the Foxfire. Unable to move or do anything but signal her surrender.

Still it hovered there. Still floating. Still thinking.

Still silent, except for the hum, which sounded more like some far-off generator or air conditioner than something  **right there**.

Still Pacifica knelt. Still she stared.

Suddenly, a blinding flash of green light. Pacifica closed her eyes, felt herself fading away into nothing...Fading...Fading...

Then the Foxfire vanished. And when it had gone, so had Pacifica.


	11. Chapter 11

Pacifica's eyes snapped open. It took her a long moment to realize where she was, but she saw...

She was in a car, for sure. Somehow. With upholstered doors and seats. A limousine? How did she get  _there_?

Everything looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place it. Didn't have enough pieces. It was deja vu, or a flashback, or  _something_.

She looked down and saw she was wearing...a mauve dress?

And the pieces started coming together in her head. When the realization hit, she felt sick to her stomach.

_Oh my **God**._

**That**  night.

As expected, Dipper sat next to her, awkwardly dressed in a suit, looking distant and upset.

One of, maybe the, most humiliating moments of Pacifica's life. And she was stuck reliving it.

She tried to tell herself that it was a dream or a delusion. That this couldn't be real. But then she remembered the Foxfire and what had happened in her last moments of consciousness before this. How could she believe other than what was in front of her face?

Life, or Fate, or some weird green ball, had dealt her the worst hand of all.

Because she knew what came next. The awkward, misguided attempt at intimacy that broke a relationship already cracking, that tore two people who'd been dating for a month and been friends for far longer apart, so much that no amount of apologies and contrition could fully heal.

This time, it was worse. Because she knew it was coming. And she couldn't stop it.

Or maybe she could.

Maybe there was a  **reason**  she had this opportunity. Or maybe not a reason (who even knew if those green balls could reason?)...but it  _was_  an opportunity, either way.

She wondered how many times she'd played this evening back in her mind, rehearsing what she would have done or would have said to fix it. How it would have gone differently. And now she had that chance.

 _If this a dream,_  she reasoned,  _or a hallucination, or whatever, there won't be any consequence. I'll wake up eventually and everything will be the same as it was. If it's real, well, it could hardly go worse than it did the first time, could it?_

So she took a deep breath and turned towards Dipper.

"Dipper...can we talk?" she asked.

"Hmm." Dipper grunted, still looking out the window.

"Dipper, I'm so sorry about tonight," she said softly. "This isn't how I envisioned this date at all."

Dipper stirred slightly in his seat, but still didn't face her.

"Like, I know that I can be..."

"A bitch?"

Pacifica reeled from that word like a slap. Took a long moment to recover. Her head still spun afterwards. But she managed to continue as if she hadn't been interrupted, even though she was trembling.

"...But, I really don't mean anything by it. I'm sorry if I make you feel like you're not good enough for me."

"Well...thank you," Dipper said, crossing his arm.

"I mean it, Dipper." Pacifica worried that her sincerity wasn't getting through. She hesitated for a long moment, then put her hand on Dipper's shoulder.

"I mean, it would be nice if you didn't make fun of me, basically, for not being rich all the time."

"Yeah, I know," she assured him, with all the wisdom gleaned from two years' hindsight.

"You know? Then why do you say those things?"

"They're jokes," she responded. Then thought about her answer, and how lame an excuse it was. "But...I guess I should have realized you don't find them funny."

"I don't make it  **that**  hard to tell, do I?" Dipper skulked.

There was another long moment of silence. Pacifica shifted uneasily in her seat, felt her heart pounding. Things didn't seem to be going well. She noticed that Dipper still wasn't facing her. Even so, without prompting, he began vomiting out his feelings.

"I mean, your dad is enough of a jerk already. But I could put up with that if, you know, I had some support from you, or if you didn't say similar things to cut me down."

"I'm sorry," Pacifica repeated dumbly.

"Like, I know you don't buy into the same Jew stuff that he does. But could you at least, like, stand up to him when he does that? It hurts, Pacifica. Maybe you don't realize it. Maybe you think your dad's just being gauche or gross, and that I'm being oversensitive or something. But, yeah, imagine if I was black and he used...certain epithets about me."

Pacifica nodded. Somehow, she hadn't thought about it in  **that**  way.

"It's not just gross or impolite. It's  _racist_ , Pacifica. It's  **not**  cool. It's not something I'm gonna tolerate. I mean, last year I got in trouble at school for punching someone who called Mabel a...a slur. And...as much as I like you, or  _try_  to like you, I'm  **not**  gonna put up with that from your dad, or you, or anyone in your family. If I were older, I'd punch Preston in the mouth, too."

Pacifica reeled from how  _angry_  he seemed, how wounded. Somehow, in all the time she'd had to think about it, she hadn't fully grasped how much he resented that part of her dad's needling.

Maybe because she didn't think being Jewish was a big deal, and didn't understand why anyone would. She was more innocent than anything, having grown up part of a generation where most prejudices are hidden, or at least coded, and where something as anachronistic as antisemitism seemed truly alien. But she was fast realizing that wasn't an excuse.

"Dipper..." she began, trying to summon the right words. "I'm so, so, sorry."

_No, **that**  won't do it._

"Dipper, you know I don't feel that way about it," she said hopefully.

"Sometimes it's hard to tell," he responded.

"Well, I'm sorry if I make it hard. If I did...we wouldn't be in this car together. I mean it."

Pacifica sighed, worrying that she wasn't getting through.

"I won't let my dad call you those names any more," she assured him. "And I won't let him pick on you about anything else. He's gonna have to accept that I'm in love with Dipper Pines, with  _all_  that entails! And if he won't accept it, he's gonna have to go fuck himself!"

Finally, Dipper turned his head towards Pacifica. His brow looked furrowed, he still appeared skeptical. But at least he was listening now.

"I'm high maintenance," Pacifica said, laughing at herself. "But I'll try not to be. Or try harder."

"No more jokes about my clothes? Or my hair? Or, you know, how I look in a dress shirt?"

"No more," she assured him. She smiled as warmly as she could.

Dipper sighed and looked down.

"Guess...I'm not the ideal boyfriend either, huh?"

Pacifica shook her head. "You haven't done anything..."

"I mean, I should do more to make you feel welcome at the Shack or wherever," he said. "And I'm sorry I don't. I mean, a relationship's a two-way street, and you're not the only one who can make someone feel bad." He shrugged.

"Well, let's agree that we can both do more to make this relationship work," Pacifica offered. Dipper turned back towards her, and the two clutched hands, staring into each other's eyes. Finally, the ice thawed, and finally they smiled at each other.

They didn't kiss. They didn't have to. This moment was perfect as it was.

* * *

Pacifica was practically  _skipping_  as she led Dipper into the mansion. Her parents were waiting, and looked agog as their daughter and her beau made an entrance.

"Umm...hello, Pacifica," Priscilla said. "And...Dipper." Preston just nodded.

"Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad!" Pacifica said, clutching Dipper's hand and swinging it back and forth. He smiled and blushed in embarrassment.

"I take it you kids had fun," Preston said, forcing a grin.

"The best!" Pacifica insisted, smooching Dipper's hand despite his whispered protests.

"Well, Dipper, I appreciate your taking care of my daughter this evening," Preston said, offering a hand. "I'm sure you didn't do anything untoward."

"Why would he?" Pacifica demanded. She shot her father a challenging glare. "You know Dipper - he's the perfect gentleman."

And  **that**  choice of words set Preston's teeth on edge. "Of course," he muttered diplomatically.

"I'm sure we can get John or Lester to drive you home, Dipper," Priscilla said. "Even if it's late..."

"Nonsense," Preston said. "The boy came all this way, and it  **is**  late! He can stay the night here."

Pacifica's jaw practically dropped at hearing this. She noticed her mother seemed flustered by the suggestion, too, though she forced a smile back on her face.

"Thanks, Dad," Pacifica muttered, disbelieving.

"Are you sure?" Dipper asked, sputtering. "I mean, I don't want to put anyone out..."

"Look where you are...Dipper," Preston said, all cordiality. "You have your pick of the rooms here."

"You two are  **not**  going to sleep in the same bedroom!" Priscilla insisted.

"Mom," Pacifica complained.

"Of course," Dipper sputtered. "I mean, that's fine with me!"

"Dipper and I aren't, you know..." Pacifica didn't want to explain. She was still spinning with

"I'm sure you aren't," Preston said. He stepped forward and clapped Dipper on the shoulder, smiling. Dipper smiled back, then turned to Pacifica, his eyes showing bafflement.

Pacifica could only shrug. She had no idea what game her father was playing, either.

She hadn't hoped for the evening to go nearly  _this_  well. Let alone that her dad would be willing to let Dipper spend the night at their place.

Though, knowing him, he probably had  **some**  ulterior motive. But that was a problem for another time.

 _Maybe I've actually won,_  Pacifica thought. She looked at Dipper and beamed. He still seemed puzzled, but smiled and clapped Pacifica's hand tighter. Then he leaned forward and pecked her on the cheek, making Preston and Priscilla wince.

 _Maybe I **was**  given a second chance to change things,_ Pacifica thought.  _And maybe things will work out now. Maybe Dipper and I can be together. And maybe my parents will even accept it. I'll have to thank the Foxfire - whatever it actually **is**  - somehow._

But that, too, was another problem for later. For, right this moment, Pacifica Northwest was the happiest girl in the world.

* * *

Pacifica lay in her bed, now wearing her favorite pajamas, relishing the luxury of her comforter and pillows, all the accouterments of a rich, happy teenager. She  **was**  a little upset she couldn't spend the night with Dipper...even sneaking into his room and having fun would be hard, given how many servants the family had, and she was sure that her parents would be watching, anyway. But for now, this was enough ( _more_  than enough) for her to be happy.

She still couldn't shake the thought that this was too good to be true...that this was all a dream, or a hallucination. But if it was one, it was very long, way too vivid, and it made her feel so good that she honestly didn't care.

 _If it's a dream,_  she told herself,  _let me never wake up._

She heard a knock on the door. "Pacifica, it's your Mom," the voice said.

Priscilla cracked open the door ever-so-slightly. "Pacifica, I'm glad you had a nice time with Dipper tonight."

"Thanks, Mom."

Priscilla hesitated for a moment. She seemed to want to say more, but stopped, as if she couldn't form the words.

"Good night, dear," she said, closing the door suddenly.

Pacifica sat up. That  _definitely_  felt weird. But then she remembered how many interactions she and her Mom had like that, only the most cursory displays of concern or affection. And she decided it was no big deal.

She laid back down, putting her mom's brief, awkward appearance out of her mind. Why worry about her when Dipper was right down the hall?

She closed her eyes. And sighed, happily this time.

After a long moment, she heard the noise again.

It was so faint at first that she thought it was the room's air conditioning or a pipe or maybe the television in her parents' room. Then it started getting louder. More insistent.

As it slowly grew louder, more intense, she recognized it. The same weird humming noise that she'd heard in the forest, just as the Foxfire closed in on her.

She felt her heart sink, felt an instant sensation of dread course through her body.

The noise grew louder. It almost sounded like whispering - atonal, non-verbal whispers, not making words but weird  _ssshshshsh_  noises. They echoed in her head, growing louder, drowning out the humming.

She tried to move. Managed to bolt her eyes open. But couldn't.

She was frozen on the bed. Staring at the ceiling.

Then, suddenly, she felt her head starting to burn. Not like a fire, but a heat that made her mind and her temples throb with agony, that made her teeth and her bones ache.

She clenched her teeth together. Managed to raise her hands to her face and pressed them tight.

_What is going **on?**_

The hum and the whispers grew louder. The pain grew more intense.

Then, miraculously, they stopped.

Pacifica opened her eyes, blinking. For a brief flicker of a moment, her bedroom was there, everything as it should be.

Then, like someone had flicked off a switch, everything vanished. Pacifica was now laying in a black void, surrounded by nothing.

She cried out, tried to sit or stand up. But she couldn't move. Could only move her arms.

Then, like a television screen turning on, she saw images from her memory, one by one, appearing only to distort themselves, like warped reels of film.

Pacifica and Dipper's date...the original version that ended in shame. It faded into the new version, with the couple clutching hands together for the ride home.

The evening moved on, in a flash.

Pacifica saw her angry confrontation with her parents after the failed date. It faded in and out of focus, only to be replaced by the sight of her holding Dipper's hand as Preston gave them his blessing.

Flash.

Two figures talking. She couldn't make them out, they were silhouetted. Were  _they_  the ones whispering? It seemed like it.

But their voices sounded human. And very familiar. Especially as Pacifica heard words starting to bleed through the mist:

_"...arrangement could be made..."_

_"...I'm not..."_

_"...my daughter will..."_

_"...I wouldn't dream of..."_

_"...your mysteries..."_

Pacifica realized who the two figures were - who they  _must_  be. From the words and the voices she could make it, they had to be Dipper and her dad, deep in an intense, heated conversation.

But why was she seeing, or hearing this? What did it  **mean**? Was this conversation going on now? In the future? In the past?

She didn't have time to puzzle it out. Because she felt the heat searing through her mind again. She clamped her eyes shut. And snapped them open.

Flash. Another image.

Now Pacifica saw...her mom comforting her about her bad date. She heard Priscilla's voice echoing in her head, though badly distorted.

_"I'm here if you want to talk...You know where to find me."_

_"Thanks, Mom."_

And the image shattered like glass, revealing the new scene that Pacifica had just experienced. Pacifica could hear her mom's voice clearly; this second time, she could feel the palpable disappointment.

_"Good night, Pacifica."_

And Pacifica took a deep, heavy, gasping breath, as if she hadn't breathed in hours. And sat up.

Back in her room. Everything the same. Everything identical to what it had been just a moment before.

She looked around in panic, trying to convince herself everything was normal. After a moment, she managed to satisfy herself that it was.

Maybe it was a bad dream, Pacifica told herself. Maybe I dozed off or something.

But then she realized that she'd rejected such an explanation earlier. And as she lay back down, she felt a chill spreading down her back.


	12. Chapter 12

Pacifica blinked, and woke up two years in the future.

As before, she suddenly found herself in a familiar environment - more familiar from her memories than elsewhere. She was still in the family's Salem Mansion, but she now sat at the dining room in a sea foam green (!) dress, surrounded by well-heeled swells. And Dipper, looking uncommonly dapper, sat on her left, beaming at the crowd, happy at his finally being accepted.

To her right stood her father, in the process of giving a toast.

"...I'll admit that when Pacifica and Dipper first started dating, it took me awhile to accept him. But the more I got to know him, the more Pacifica stressed what a good young man he was, it was easy for me to shed my initial prejudices. My daughter couldn't have picked anyone better. She couldn't have selected more of a gentleman, nor anyone with a brighter future. I don't often admit that I'm wrong but in this case, I'm happy to oblige."

Applause and laughter from the crowd. Pacifica smiled dumbly, still adjusting herself to the sudden shift in reality.

"My only reservation is that these kids are getting engaged so young, before they've even went to college. But at the same time, young love is as young love does. Pacifica's mother, God rest her soul, was still in school when I started seeing her. And Pacifica and Dipper have promised me that they won't get married until both of them have graduated. In which case, my concern is moot."

It took Pacifica a minute to register Preston's comment about her mother. She looked over and saw that, yes, there was an empty chair next to Preston. And she felt a stab of terror in her stomach.

She zoned out of the rest of Preston's speech; naturally, he started talking about himself. Instead she looked around, seeing how many people she recognized.

Besides Dipper, she spotted Mabel on the other side of Dipper, wearing a modest blue dress. She was smiling, but it seemed more reserved, reluctant. Like she was being forced to be here against her will. And that affected her almost as much as her mom's absence.

No Charlie, of course. But that didn't matter overmuch to Pacifica.

She noticed no other people from Gravity Falls. Which didn't surprise her overmuch, but still felt bad. But she didn't really recognize anyone else either - only one or two of her Salem friends, Betty and Jack, awkwardly crammed into a corner of the table. Most of those present were adults, probably Preston's business partners and political contacts, and maybe some of their kids, ghastly monsters who looked more gaudy and inbred than an English royal.

"...And I'm sure that Dipper can make Pacifica a happy woman. I hope that I can make Pacifica a Senator's daughter this fall, too. And who knows? From there, the sky's the limit. One day we might be looking at President Mason Pines."

Laughter and applause.

"To Dipper and Pacifica, future newlyweds, future heirs to our fortune. You have everything ahead of you, and all of us behind you."

And he raised his glass, making a toast. Three dozen arms followed stiffly in response.

* * *

It was during Dinner that Pacifica started registering that things were deeply wrong.

First, of course, was Dipper, who showed little interest in his affianced throughout the food. Okay, he'd never been great at small talk to begin with, and he'd always been somewhat awkward in social settings like this. Still, there was a terse rudeness in his manner which a smile could only hide for so long. And any show of affection Pacifica made beyond a perfunctory handhold met with a rebuff. When she tried wrapping her arms around his midsection, he brushed her away. And that hurt.

Mabel's demeanor hurt almost as much. She picked at her food, eating it much more daintily and modestly than she ever did in Pacifica's experience. Maybe that came down to the setting. But she noticed that brother and sister barely acknowledged each other, that Mabel, usually a voluble fountain of joy, had nothing to say to anyone. Though Pacifica couldn't blame her for that either; she knew, probably, zero people here. But she seemed remarkably miserable, depressed, holding it together only for appearances' sake. And it was obvious that, completely unlike her, she wasn't taking any solace in her brother's presence.

And Pacifica still felt dread of learning about her mother. What could have changed so much that she would have  _died_? The implication is that by the act of dating Dipper, she had somehow caused her mother's death. And she really puzzled how that could be.

These thoughts percolated through Pacifica's mind all through dinner. She didn't notice the food or the music or the conversation. During the reception afterwards, she tried to investigate what had happened.

She noticed, first of all, that Dipper accompanied her father everywhere. That he always stood by Preston's side whenever he talked with some muckity-muck. That he watched their observations with eager interest, with a look Pacifica could only describe as canine. It unnerved her deeply, because it was so  **different**  from the Dipper she knew and loved (in this timeline, there was no harm admitting it).

"Hey Dipper,  **there**  you are!" Pacifica called. She decided to interject herself in hopes of figuring out what had changed.

Dipper exchanged a glance with Preston, then looked at Pacifica. Each with an identical look of dismissive contempt towards her, which made her blood run cold.

"What's up, Pacifica?" Dipper asked with evident disinterest.

"I, uh, just wanted to see... _you_!" she fibbed. "Is it so weird to wanna spend time with my, um, fiance? After all, this party's for us, right?"

Preston laughed. "Of course it is, darling," he assured his daughter. "Dipper, I'm sure you don't find this conversation more interesting than my daughter."

"I dunno, I'm always interested in meeting your clients," Dipper responded, looking approvingly at Preston as he greeted a bald black man. "Might as well get as much practice in as I can."

Forget canine - this was positively puppy-like. And it made Pacifica sick. What on Earth had  _happened_  to him?

"Okay. Well, when you men are done with your business talk, come find me!" Pacifica said hopefully.

Dipper nodded. "Yeah, I promise you we'll have a dance later - just you and me!"

He pecked her quickly on the forehead, then turned back to Preston, who introduced him to his client.

Pacifica turned away, bewildered. That little show of intimacy didn't exactly reassure her.

She walked through the crowd, making a few perfunctory acknowledgments of people whom she didn't even know, but who congratulated her and asked about her plans, small talk she could only fumble at making because, well, how do you make up for two missing years?

She found Mabel on the other side of the room, standing alone by the refreshments, sipping some punch. She looked even sadder than she had at dinner, and this time wasn't really bothering to hide it. Pacifica could only hope that she was still Mabel enough to be talkative.

Pacifica waved and made her way to over to her friend. "Hi, Mabel!" she said, in as sweet a voice as she could manage.

"Hi, Pacifica," Mabel said. And she sported that phony, heartbreaking smile again, with pain bleeding through the edges.

"I'm so glad you could make it, Mabel," she said, grabbing her friend's hands and smiling broadly. "It means so much that you're here."

"Well, Dipper pretty much made me come," Mabel said, barely disguising some evident bitterness. Then a forced note of Mabelian cheerfulness: "Of course, I'm happy that my favorite bro is getting married, of course!"

Then her sadness returned despite her smile. "As long as  _he_ 's happy."

"Well, I'm lucky to be marrying your brother," Pacifica said, trying gingerly to goad her into conversation. "And I'll be happy to have  **you**  as my sister-in-law!"

Mabel arced an eyebrow at this comment. "Coulda fooled me," she muttered.

"Huh? What do you mean?" And Mabel, showing a long moment of pained hesitation, began to unload.

"I mean, it's great that you and Dipper get to be together and be happy! I'm really happy for both of you. I'm sure you'll be perfect for each other - the two of you are such a cute couple! But, I mean...I wish I could be happy for me.

"Which is selfish, I know!" she continued, clearly hating herself for feeling this way. But Pacifica could tell that she  _had_  to say it, and didn't interrupt.

"But...this past year has been rough. It's already hard enough getting ready to graduate, but...Dipper has been spending so much time with you, and your dad, and talking about business, and making plans...it's been  **impossible**  to spend any twin time together! He's gone during weekends and holidays and all the time we'd be spending together otherwise."

"I'm sorry," Pacifica said. "I didn't realize..."

"Maybe I'm old enough now that it shouldn't matter, but...Blaargh! Even when he is home, he's...different. He doesn't talk to me at all, barely acknowledges me. Maybe you don't notice it, since he's around you so much, but...it's not there any more. You know,  **It**. Between us. It's like he's not Dipper any more."

"I don't think that's true," Pacifica said, though her voice betrayed her doubts.

"But it's fine," Mabel said, tears brimming in her eyes. "Really! I mean, don't worry about Weird Ole Mabel. You two can be happy together! And when you guys get married, Dipper won't need his weird twin sister around any more."

And _that_  cut nicely to the quick. Did she really force a wedge between the Pines twins?

She didn't recall that issue coming up two years ago when they were dating. Though, to be fair, she barely saw Mabel beyond perfunctory greetings that summer...mostly she remembered how puffy and awkward Mabel seemed that summer. Which have been proof enough.

Just about the last thing she wanted to do - at least, the last thing older-and-wiser Pacifica wanted to do - was to break up the Mystery Twins. That would be unforgivable.

"Mabel, I'm...I'm sorry," Pacifica said.

Pacifica moved forward to hug the girl, but Mabel, to her surprise (to her  _shock_ , it was so unlike her), drew away as if in fear. And again flashed the awkward, pained smile, now deployed as a barrier against Pacifica.

"Anyway, good luck to you guys," Mabel said, before walking over to see someone else.

Pacifica stood by the table, looking dejected. Though she had another mystery, maybe even a more important one, to unravel before probing deeper into what went wrong with Dipper.

* * *

She snuck out of the party and grabbed a tablet in her room. She fought through her doubt and dread and trembling, typing in the words "Priscilla Northwest..." After a long pause, she added "death."

And she saw a headline from a local paper. And after a long pause, clicked on the link:

**_NORTHWEST TRAGEDY_ **

**_WIFE OF PRESTON NORTHWEST FOUND DEAD_ **

**_OVERDOSE SUSPECTED_ **

Trembling, Pacifica continued to read the article, seeing an old picture of her mother from her early 30s, then reading the first few lines of the article.

_Priscilla Kathleen Northwest, age 41, wife of businessman and Senate candidate Preston Northwest, passed away at her home in Salem, Oregon. She was found by a servant, having apparently overdosed on sleeping pills._

_"It's an incredible tragedy," Mr. Northwest said in a statement. "I have known and loved Priscilla for two decades, and her loss comes as a great shock to all of our family and friends. She was an incredibly kind, loving and generous woman who made everyone she knew better."_

_The coroner has not formally ruled on a cause of death. However, the family is reluctant to allow an autopsy._

She didn't bother to read the rest. Instead she put her head down on the desk and started bawling her eyes out, not bothering to restrain herself.

After the initial  _shock_  wore off, she really wondered what had changed. Was dating Dipper, or not dating him, really **that**  important? Would her being happy, or at least not single, have that big of an impact on everyone around her? And a  _negative_  impact at that?

If so, she must be the most put-upon human being on Earth. That she was destined to suffer so others may be happy.

But she didn't feel like self-pity, not just now. She wanted to figure out what went wrong, and how. Mabel gave her a few hints, this article, but she wanted to piece it together in her mind.

She thought back to her vision, or hallucination, or whatever it was, the previous night (or two years ago). And how her managing to patch things up with Dipper seemed to alter the very fabric of her memories, right before her eyes.

She remembered how Priscilla, instead of awkwardly, but sincerely trying to comfort her daughter after a break-up, gave her the most perfunctory of good night messages. She really wondered if that evening, if that break-up, had been  **that**  important in their relationship.

Which seemed absurd. But then she remembered her last conversation with Priscilla before leaving Salem, back in the past or present or future or whatever it was. How her mom had commented:

_"My life is already as good as over. But you...you're so young. You don't deserve to get caught in this, and you still have time to make your own life."_

How much Priscilla, after the end of Preston's campaign, had devolved into drinking and pills. How she only seemed to perk up when she spent time with her daughter (and oftentimes, as in their last tennis match, not even then). How she had sent Pacifica a text warning that her dad knew she was gone.

How much she'd genuinely feared for her mother's life, even in the "correct" timeline, after things fell apart. But, she reflected, there was more than one way for a person to fall apart.

_"I've spent my whole adult life suffering that man. Guess it's my fate."_

Maybe Pacifica's mom had indeed spent the last few years suffering. And done a better job of hiding it until lately than Pacifica had ever expected.

She tried to think about how many  _other_  memories had been obliterated. How many simple conversations with her mother, which she didn't rate much individually, but together showed a relationship struggling to mend itself, awkwardly but sincerely, had been missed. How many comforts over a bad date or fun times playing tennis or pride over grades and achievements. Or whatever.

Which explained Priscilla's longevity if nothing else - how she had kept herself going despite everything. Because she had a daughter, a daughter who was far from perfect, but who tried her best to be better. Because she had one thing to live for, even if everything else in her life was miserable.

Without that conversation, without Dipper's break up, there was no starting point, no foundation for a better relationship. Nothing.

And now, Pacifica no longer had a Mom.

* * *

Pacifica sat there for a long moment, registering this information, reluctant to return to the party. She could dimly hear the music and the conversation in the back of her head. But it didn't interest her.

What went wrong? What did changing  _one thing_  do to the timeline? To all the people she loved and cared about?

As if in answer, the humming and whispers started in her head again. She felt the deep, aching heat in her skull and clamped her eyes shut. And blinked open.

She was in the void again, this time stuck standing upright. And she saw fragments of conversations and past events playing before her eyes. Some were even events she couldn't even have witnessed.

For instance, Dipper and Mabel at home in Piedmont:

_"Come on Dipper, you promised me that we would go to the movies tonight! It's been a bazillion years since we had a Twins' Night Out!_

_"Mabel, I told you! I'm meeting with the Northwests tonight. Dinner with Pacifica then a chat with her dad."_

_"You spend all your time with Pacifica and **Preston!** Can't you make time for your sister? Just for one night?"_

_"And you spend all your time with those weird boyfriends from school! This is **important** , Mabel! It's my future. Maybe try thinking about that for once."_

_"And I'm not important?"_

_"You just don't get it. Goodbye, Mabel."_

The harshness of Dipper's words and attitude broke Pacifica's heart. The image shorted out on an image of Mabel fighting back tears as her brother stormed out.

Priscilla with Pacifica, who was absently trying on a stylish sport coat:

_"I forgot you had another date tonight."_

_"Yeah, it's only the biggest party of the year. All the big families in Salem are going to be there."_

_"And I hope you two have fun. I was just thinking...it might be fun for us to do something fun together."_

_"Ugh, this coat doesn't match my shoes! I'll have to make Pierre take it back."_

What surprised her wasn't Priscilla's attitude, which seemed so quietly, but how cold  **she**  seemed.

Which didn't make sense. But only because Pacifica knew firsthand what had happened after the breakup.

And then she started piecing together the meaning. Which wasn't the self-pitying conclusion that she needed to suffer for everyone else. Rather, with this fuller picture, it was a more comforting one: that she needed to suffer in that moment **to make herself better**.

True, Pacifica had  _started_  to change before she and Dipper dated. But it was a superficial, tenuous change...enough to net her praise of parents and teachers and a new clique, to put her on top of a new gang. A gang of hangers-on that she could make into deeper friends, or into followers and lackies to bully as she always had before.

Maybe failing at that relationship helped her out, helped her realize that she wasn't perfect, that she needed to improve herself to get what she wanted.

And Pacifica, without having to learn that lesson, never needed to grow. She got everything she wanted, as she almost always had. And any good strands in her, things that Dipper and Mabel had teased out over the years, were stamped out or sublimated by the need to be popular, the need to be rich and classy, the need to be a Northwest. And now she was seeing all the repercussions, spreading out like a million cracks in a pane of shattered glass. 

Whatever was causing these visions - the Foxfire, she still thought, though it was so far in the back of her mind this point she barely remembered the particulars - it seemed to be filling in the blanks. To tell her that despite how awful things had been in the moment, they served a purpose in the end.  _It's a Wonderful Life_  type of deal, maybe.

At least that's what she  **hoped**  it was. Because she no longer knew if this was a fantasy, a temporary visit to an alternative timeline, or a new reality she'd have to live in forever. And she really, really, **really**  hoped that it wasn't the latter.

Then she felt the heat and heard the buzzing and whispers again. And closed her eyes again, clenched her teeth, waiting for the next dread revelation.


	13. Chapter 13

Pacifica woke up in a nightmare.

She stood at the end of a long, darkened tunnel. At the far end, she saw a lighted desk with someone - Dipper? - hunched over it, talking to someone. His voice was inaudible at first.

She was already having a hard enough time telling how real this all was, whether this was reality or some kind of dream. What the hell was she supposed to do with  **this**?

She started walking down the tunnel, hearing Dipper's voice slowly become louder and more audible. And she heard a faint musical cue playing over the scene...which she immediately recognized.

That damned Schubert piece. Her father's favorite.

Her own footsteps echoed off the floor as she approached Dipper and the light. And he sounded more animated than she had earlier; he sounded, for a moment, like Dipper.

"...Yeah, that sounds really crazy, Wendy! What would people want in the Museum of History? Aw man, I wish I could be there. Good luck, and let me know what you found out."

As Pacifica drew within a few feet, as Dipper hung up the telephone, part of the darkness around Dipper seemed to lift like a cinematographer's trick...revealing  _Preston_  standing next to Dipper with a stern look on his face.

"Well, she found out about the break-in," Dipper said. "Looks like she's gonna poke her nose around to figure out what happened."

"I noticed you didn't try talking her out of investigating," Preston said disapprovingly.

"No, you can't tell Wendy Corduroy  **not**  to do something. I know her as well as anybody, and...she's not gonna give up just because you warn her. If anything, it'll make her more determined."

Preston nodded gravely, waiting for his protege to explain himself.

"There's a very easy way to resolve this," Dipper assured him. "She'll show up at the Museum in Gravity Falls looking for clues, or maybe trying to catch the guy in the act. Unfortunately, little does Wendy know that there will be an army of police waiting for her. And suddenly they'll have their culprit. And no one will look any further."

Pacifica's mouth dropped open.

"You would do that to one of your oldest friends?" Preston said. And Pacifica noticed that he wasn't being reproachful so much as sounding impressed.

"Some things are more important than friendship," Dipper said. "You taught me that."

Preston smiled and patted Dipper on the shoulder.

It seemed every new thing Pacifica learned from this new reality was calculated specifically to make her sick. And this most of all.

In her reality, of course, Dipper and Wendy were a couple. They had been close friends for years and finally realized that it was something more. And in this reality...

She felt a genuine swirl of nausea as she processed this information. She shut her eyes, demanding, pleading for the foxfire to transport her back to her own reality.

"Oh Pacifica, I didn't see you there."

She opened her eyes and saw her father and Dipper staring at her. Suddenly the tunnel was gone, and she was in the family study, everything as ordinary as possible.

"Dipper...Dad...what are you guys doing?"

"Protecting the family name, dear," Preston said unapologetically. "And your fiance is doing an amazing job!"

"You're going to throw Wendy to the wolves...for what?" she demanded of Dipper.

"What does Wendy mean to me?" Dipper asked.

"How can you say that?" Pacifica demanded. "She's one of your oldest friends."

"She  **was**  my oldest friend. But she didn't understand why I'd be spending time with you "snooty" and "elite" "assholes" as she called you, and your father. So I decided, screw her."

"So, your response to that was to  **prove her right**?" That didn't make any sense.

"Since when do you care about that redheaded hick and her redneck family?" Preston demanded. "They've never been more than dirt on the soles of our shoes. They almost pulled Dipper down to their level, but you rescued him, thank God."

"But...But I didn't..." And Pacifica didn't know what to say.

"It's like you told me," Dipper said, cruelly. "They don't understand us.  **Wendy**  doesn't understand us, even though she pretends to be a friend. So screw her."

Pacifica tried to say something else, then choked on her words.

"Now, this is the kind of conversation I'd prefer my daughter not be involved with," Preston said harshly. "It's an unpleasant snag in our campaign and we're taking care of it. You run along back to the party while we sort this out."

 **"No!"**  Pacifica said, regaining control of herself, literally putting her foot down. "This is wrong! And you know it's wrong! I'm not going to let you do this to one of your friends."

"Pacifica..." Preston warned.

"Paz, you're acting hysterical," Dipper said.

"No, I'm the only one here who's acting right."

Preston tsk-tsked and reached into his coat pocket. And Pacifica watched in horror as he pulled out a familiar object.

The bell.

"No..." Pacifica choked out helplessly, her eyes transfixed by the shiny metal.

**RING! RING! RING!**

Pacifica couldn't help it. She couldn't resist. She dropped her head and blushed, unable to do anything else. Cowed by her father.

Like a little girl.

"Go back to the party," Preston repeated. "We'll talk about this later."

"Yes, father," Pacifica heard herself say.

Deeply embarrassed, she shuffled out of the room. She heard Dipper and Preston laughing as she left.

"...Hopefully  **you**  won't have to use that bell. But Pacifica's always been a willful child. Sometimes she needs tough love to keep her straight."

"Well, I hope so. She can't be making scenes every time she has a fit of morality like this."

"I just wish I'd had something like this for  **my**  wife!"

Cruel, callous, misogynist laughter.

Pacifica stumbled down the hall, wondering what on Earth had happened to Dipper. And then she fell.

At first, she thought she tripped over her foot, or down the stairs. But no. It was the Foxfire, acting without warning this time. Instead of falling to the ground, she fell into the Void.

* * *

This time, she could move, but it didn't seem to help. If anything it made the situation much more unnerving.

The whispering was everywhere, along with a deep growling hum that sounded like a Buddhist cadence. And Pacifica watched, images the size of skyscrapers played before her.

A scene from Preston and Dipper's initial arrangement, the one from that night two years ago. She couldn't hear their voices, just watching as Preston talked Dipper around to an "accommodation." At the end of it they shook hands grimly, as if they'd concluded a hard-fought business deal.

Next to it, another towering image played. Showing Dipper giving a speech before some kind of convention. All Pacifica could hear was applause.

A third. Showing Preston advising Dipper as he read through an account book, showing him the best way to fudge numbers on taxes and earnings.

Then an audio clip playing, without visual accompaniment, as if produced from a hidden tape recorder:

_"PRESTON. These mysteries of yours are an entertaining sideline, Dipper. And I don't mind funding your investigations now and again. But maybe it's time to consider full time options. How about you join the family business?_

_"DIPPER. I don't know...I don't really have much head for business._

_"PRESTON. Nonsense. It's easy enough to master with a little training and guidance. Besides, given your background I'm sure it would be a cinch._

_"DIPPER. My background?_

_"PRESTON. Yes, someone as smart and educated as you wouldn't have problems mastering the art of the deal._

_"DIPPER. I'm flattered. But, I mean, I don't know...it's not really what I want to do, you know?_

_"PRESTON. I understand. But sometimes, as the Bible says, you must put away childish things and focus on what really matters. Things that are meant for adults. And what could be more adult than running a multi-million dollar business? Putting your skills and your brain to good use!"_

Even as Pacifica absorbed this, a snippet from another, more unnerving conversation began to play out.

_"PRESTON. Can't stand all these bankers trying to filch money off me. You never can trust a Jew, can you boy?_

_"DIPPER. Well Mr. Northwest...there are Jews and there are **Jews**."_

Another punch to Pacifica's gut. But there was another one to come.

_"DIPPER. Why don't you want Pacifica in your business? I mean, I'm flattered, but she's your child, not me._

_"PRESTON. Call me old-fashioned or what have you, but I don't think women have any place in business. Too emotional, not smart enough, not enough stamina. You think I ever let Priscilla anywhere near the company? Ha! And you don't think I'd let my daughter, who cares more about her outfits than about money, have anything to do with it? No way. At least, not when I have you._

_"DIPPER. I don't know, she's a pretty smart girl._

_"PRESTON. Hmm, perhaps. But it won't hurt if she's reminded that she's not as smart as she thinks she is."_

But the last conversation hurt Pacifica most of all. Because it was her voice that she heard chastising Dipper, pushing him away from the boy she'd known and loved all these years. It was hers:

_"PACIFICA. Dipper, you need to stop seeing that Corduroy girl._

_"DIPPER. Pacifica, no, she's one of my oldest friends._

_"PACIFICA. I get that, but come on, Dipper! She's a hick._

_"DIPPER. No she's not! Why are you...?_

_"PACIFICA. Why do you think she hates us so much. She doesn't understand us. She'll never understand us. And she can't stand that maybe you want something or someone better than her world of chopping down trees and wrestling monsters in the mud._

_"DIPPER. That's not fair! She is...She is..._

_"PACIFICA. Come on, Dip. I know you like her, but...you know I'm right, don't you? That you won't get anywhere in life with Wendy Corduroy as your girlfriend. Or, for that matter, if you spend so much time around your sister."_

Pacifica gasped. Then she watched as the Void produced dozens of conversations, all running simultaneously, noises and images clashing and creating an ugly montage of changed pasts and tortured futures. It was too much.

She started to stagger back away from the wall of images, tried to cover her ears so she couldn't hear anything. She heard another voice, apparently inside her own head:

_"Screw them, Dipper. You're one of **us**  now. We're the only ones who matter."_

"No!" She shouted. And she screamed. Until she heard the humming and felt the pain rising in her head again. She screamed as loud as she could, knowing full well that no one could hear her, until it became too much.

* * *

Finally, she opened her eyes. The noise was gone, as were the images. Just Pacifica in a void, alone.

She looked around, shouted for help, desperate for something to guide her, some sign of what to do. But there was nothing. No one.

Just her. In a void. Alone.

She sat down, crumpling into a defeated heap. She didn't cry or lose her emotions. She just felt numb. She no longer felt like she  _had_  emotions. What good would they even do?

"What are you doing, lame-o?"

Startled, Pacifica looked up and saw a shimmering light in front of her. After a moment, the light started to fade into a human form.

Pacifica herself. Wearing her favorite lake foam green dress. It was too much for Pacifica, tried to run away...but found that she couldn't.

"What...What's going on?" she demanded, facing her familiar again.

"I should ask  **you**  the same thing! In all your years on Earth, I've never known Pacifica Northwest to give up."

"You must not know me that well," Pacifica responded. "Who are you?"

"I'm  _you_ , silly!" She held up her skirt and showed it to the real Pacifica. "Who else do you think would look so fabulous in this outfit?"

"I can see  **that** ," Pacifica snapped. "But...this doesn't make any sense!"

"Since when did  _that_  matter? It's happening. And that's what counts."

"So...where am I? Can you give me some answers?"

"You're inside your own head. Sort of. It's kind of a tricky concept to explain. But basically, when you encountered the Foxfire, it sensed your problems. And it sympathized with you, I guess. I dunno. So it wanted to teach you a lesson."

"It? Is it alive?"

"Maybe. I mean, it's kinda complicated. They're energy beings, not easy to classify, even for your friends. Not demons, not faeries, not ghosts, not aliens -  **definitely**  not aliens. But they can sense souls who are lost, people badly in need of trouble, and sometimes...they want to help."

"How does all  **this**  help me?" Pacifica demanded. "Seeing that the one thing I've always wished for makes everyone miserable! Or horrible! I can't believe that Dipper..."

"Why is it so hard to understand? You seemed to be piecing it together just fine earlier. Think about it."

Pacifica tried, for a long moment. Then shrugged.

"Seriously? Girl, I know you - I  **am**  you. You're not stupid."

"Well, maybe make me a little smarter."

The Spirit, or Familiar, or whatever it was, smirked.

"Okay, just because you're me. Dipper wanted so badly to be your boyfriend after that night. He was really flattered by your apology, and he resolved at that moment that you two would be together no matter what he had to do. So that evening, after you separated, he and your dad had a conversation. He agreed that he would give your relationship his blessing, and that he would even help get him and his Great Uncle Ford funding for mysteries."

"Why? What's the catch?"

"The catch is that he would take Dipper under his wing. Teach him to be a Northwest. If he was going to date a Northwest, he was going to  _be_  a Northwest. So they started spending a lot of time together..."

"...And my dad rubbed off on him?"

"Now you're getting it!"

Pacifica shook her head. "But, this still doesn't make sense to me! Like, why didn't I recognize it? Why didn't I stop him?"

"I thought you already figured that out!" the Familiar scolded. "You had no reason to stop him! You got everything you wanted - the boy of your dreams, and the power and influence of being a Northwest. There was no reason for you to change. No reason for you to become better. No reason for you to want to be anything but the daughter of Preston Northwest."

"Even after everything that happened? I mean, it's not like I'd always gotten along with my dad anyway..."

" **That's**  an understatement! But yes. It wasn't even about loving your dad, silly! You saw how he treated you. It was about being Pacifica Northwest, or your perfect image of her. She got to live, or approximate the fantasy, and had no reason to challenge it. Any steps forward became obliterated as she grew older, as she grew separated from her old friends and the people who pushed her to be better. All she had was Dipper. And Dipper was too far gone."

"I'm still...Like, my dad didn't use some kind of magic or mystery that Dipper found during his monster hunts to make him more..."

"There's no magic involved here, Paz. Or at least, none besides me. Just humans being flawed and malleable. That's life."

Pacifica took in these heavy words and sunk back down to her knees. She started to sob, then managed to put herself together.

"What should I do? Am I trapped here forever? Can I change things back?"

"Really, nothing  **has**  changed. If you  _really_  want, it can all go back to the way it was. You'll still have your Mom. Dipper will still be Dipper, and Mabel will still be Mabel. And your life will still be...your life. You won't have a boyfriend. You'll have a shitty dad who's ruining everything you ever took for granted. But you'll have something important."

"What's that?" Pacifica leaned forward expectantly. And the Familiar smiled her Pacifica smile.

" **You** , silly! You are awesome! Maybe you don't know how much you've grown, how much of a better person you've been over the past few eyars. Because you've been letting your regrets and negative thoughts hold you back. You keep thinking about  _that night_  as if it ended your life, as if you have nothing to live for after Dipper broke up with you. Even though he's still your friend and still thinks you're an awesome person. Which is a totally stupid way for someone who's only 18 to think!"

"So what do you suggest?"

"Just keep in mind that sometimes even bad things can amount to good. It's a lesson most people learn on their own. But you...you were heading into dangerous waters. I know your thoughts, and lately they haven't been pretty. All you can do is power forward and learn that you can't change the past...you can, however, change the future. Sounds corny, but it's true."

Pacifica smiled and nodded, suddenly feeling better. Then something occurred to her.

"So, you put me through all of this instead of just, like, sitting me down and talking to me about it? Did you really need to come up with something so traumatic?"

"Got your attention," the Familiar shrugged.

Pacifica nodded and smiled. The Familiar acknowledged it by inclining her head snootily.

"Anyway,  **you**  have some more living to do. Time for you to leave. Unless you  _want_  to stay in this reality. Which can be arranged..."

"Like, not a chance in hell."

"Thought so." The Familiar smiled and nodded her head, starting to dematerialize back into light.

"Good luck," her voice called as she faded into nothing.

And Pacifica stood, staring into the void, waiting to see what came next. For the first time in a long time, she felt hopeful. 


	14. Chapter 14

This time, Pacifica woke up in a bed. Which was, at least, more comfortable than the Void.

She lifted her head off of a pillow, pushed aside a blanket, as she heard two voices arguing outside. She sat up groggily, not sure if this was still part of her Foxfire vision, or if this was finally reality. Even when she recognized the Mystery Shack's familiar ceiling, it didn't really answer her question.

She sat up, looking around the room. She realized she must have been in Mabel's bed. Next to her, she saw posters for Sev'ral Times and &ndra, drawings and photos of Waddles and Dipper and other friends...

And a picture of Mabel and Charlie on the wall. Wearing strangely formal dress...must have been from their time travel adventure.

She sighed in relief. That meant things were back to normal.

She turned over and saw a framed picture on the nightstand. And picked it up. It showed Dipper and Wendy together, a picture they'd taken just a few days ago, Wendy crushing Dipper with one arm while she took the photo with the other. And Dipper, looking awkward and dorky as ever, but smiling broadly, clearly happy and content.

And it made Pacifica smile.

She'd made it back. Back to her own reality. Her own shitty, confusing,  _real_  reality.

She couldn't be satisfied for long, though. Because the door burst open. And she recognized Pierre, the family butler, looking angry and horrified.

"Ms. Northwest, thank God you are awake! I was so terrified when I found you in the woods. Are you alright? What did that ruffian do to you?"

"What ruffian? Dipper? He didn't do anything."

"Then what happened?"

"It's a long story," Pacifica groaned, suddenly feeling a headache. "Not sure you'd believe me if I told you..."

"There'll be plenty of time to tell me on the way back to Salem," he said, grabbing Pacifica's hand and lifting her off the bed. Pacifica barely had time to react. "Your father is worried sick about you..."

"Hey!" Pacifica muttered, following along helplessly.

"Pacifica!"

She recognized Dipper's voice, and planted her heels in the floor. She turned and saw him, clutching an ice pack to his head, but otherwise all right.

"Haven't you done  _enough_  to Ms. Northwest?" Pierre scoffed. "Let us return to our family and put this unpleasantness behind us."

"She wanted to come with me," Dipper protested. "It was her choice, and..."

"He's right!" Pacifica insisted, pulling away from Pierre. " **I**  wanted to come here. And  **I**  wanted to go with Dipper on his mystery hunt. These were my choices, Pierre. Not his, not yours, not my dad's. I know my dad doesn't think I can make decisions on my own, yet here I am."

"I'm not here to argue," Pierre said. "I'm here to bring you home."

"You can't do that!" Pacifica complained. "Newsflash: I am eighteen years old!  **Technically**  an adult!" (Dipper grinned at her choice of words, but said nothing.) "I have the right to be and do whatever I want."

"You're still Mr. Northwest's daughter," Pierre said, "and when he sends for you..."

"He can shove it up his mustache," Pacifica interrupted. "If you think I'm coming back with you..."

"Ma'am, this is not an argument."

"No, it's  _not_ , because I'm  **not**  going. And you aren't going to make me."

For a moment, Pierre looked scornfully at the haughty little heiress, surprised by her resistance, her evident willingness to fight. He didn't know what he should do. He couldn't manhandle her - certainly not in someone else's home, with witnesses. And he wasn't sure he wanted to.

He'd do just about anything his master asked him to do. But he wasn't going to harm a teenage girl. Especially one who'd been through as much as Pacifica. Still, he needed to reassure himself that he'd done due dilligence.

Pierre sighed, then shot Pacifica a look. Still angry, but now more paternal than threatening.

"Ms. Northwest, are you sure you came here of your own free will?" he asked her.

"Of course I am," Pacifica insisted.

"And you're sure that this boy didn't do anything to cause you harm?"

"Why would he? He's one of my best friends."

Pierre nodded and thought for a long moment. No amount of blood money from Preston Northwest was worth this.

" _Bon chance_ , Pacifica," he said, bowing. Then he exited the Mystery Shack.

Pacifica watched him go, surprised that he'd given up so easily. Then she turned to Dipper and gave him a hug.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Pacifica said.

"Glad  **I'm**  okay?" Dipper said.

"Yeah! I mean, look at your head!"

"Oh, I've had worse. I mean, during our last mission some guy pistol-whipped me..."

"Still...are you _sure_  you're okay? That looks pretty nasty."

"I mean, as okay as I'm gonna be. There's a big lump, and I feel nauseous if I move too suddenly. But it doesn't hurt too bad, and the bleeding stopped."

Pacifica laughed. "My hero."

Dipper winced, then reshifted his ice pack so it was more comfortable.

"So...what happened to  **you**?"

* * *

Priscilla Northwest had just finished packing two suitcases when she heard her husband making a commotion downstairs. She sighed, put the suitcases down and rushed outside to see what was going on.

"What do you mean you can't find her?" Preston shouted into a telephone. " **Dammit** , Pierre. You're going to stay in that hick town until you track her down! I don't care if you have to drain every swamp, fell every tree, raze every house - you're going to find my daughter and bring her back here. End of discussion."

And he hung up the phone and slammed the receiver down. Only after a moment of fuming did he notice his wife watching him from atop the stairs.

"It's Pierre," he explained. "He said he went to Gravity Falls to find our daughter and she isn't there. Well, that's poppycock. We  **know**  she was there just yesterday afternoon. She must doing a good job of hiding, or he isn't looking hard enough. Maybe I'll have to go down there and find her myself!"

Priscilla watched him rage, pacing like a caged animal. It was the first time in awhile that he'd lost his cool so  **obviously**  like this. Maybe he did care about their daughter, after all. And  _that_  thought made Priscilla wonder if she was making the right choice, or whether she should at least delay making it.

Then she told herself,  _No. I have to do this now. I might never have the strength again. No more holding myself down to make things convenient for Preston._

"Preston, I'm sorry," she said. "This isn't the most opportune moment, but...we need to talk."

Preston acted like he hadn't heard her. She slowly, tentatively, started to descend the staircase.

"I should have **known**  after what happened last week with the Pines family and that redheaded monster," Preston said. "Ever since she was a little girl she's been  _insolent_  and  **rebellious** and mouthing off and doing things just to make me angry and to make us look absurd! So of course when things take a turn for the worse..."

"Preston..."

"So help me God, I'm going to lock her in her bedroom until she leaves for school next month."

"Preston! Would you stop talking to yourself for one minute?"

Preston finally stopped pacing, surprised by his wife's outburst. He shot her a cold, angry look.

"Preston...I don't know how else to say it, so I'm just going to say it...I'm leaving you."

Preston stood still for a long, chilling moment, considering this. Priscilla flinched, waiting for his response.

Instead of lashing out, he laughed. A long, bitter laugh that seemed like a calculated insult.

"Good one, darling," Preston finally said. "You almost had me going there. Of course, I know that there's no way you would be so selfish as to break this family apart at a time like this."

"This family is already broken," Priscilla muttered. "And you're the one who broke it."

"Now, once Pacifica gets home, everything will be back to normal," he said, oblivious in his condescension. "We'll have our family back together and starting rebuilding. Why, after meeting with our accountant this morning..."

"My God, Preston, are you  _really_  that blind?" Priscilla snapped. "You can't be. You are many, many things, but you are  **not**  stupid. It's over."

He started to say something but hesitated, instead staring impassively. Priscilla still felt a stab of fear, a dread of confrontation, but there was no going back now.

"Once upon a time, I thought we were a family," she began, her voice quiet and shaking. "But...more and more lately it's become impossible to think that. At first, I thought I was being too demanding, expecting too much. Thinking that I was just being unreasonable expecting to feel the same as we did in the honeymoon. Then Pacifica came along and...well, it started seeming like we weren't people to you, just things. And it got worse, and worse, and worse...And now, I can't even pretend any more."

She seemed on the verge of tears, but managed to control herself. Despite her resentment, she was hurt that Preston seemed completely impassive towards her spilling her guts.

"And now, listen to you. You're blaming our  _daughter_  for everything that you've done? Our daughter. Think about that. All Pacifica has ever wanted to do was love you and make you happy. And you've never seen her as anything more than a toy to show off to people."

"How dare you talk to me about  **our**  daughter that way," Preston growled quietly. And even this meager resistance, probably more for show than from sincerity, made her tremble again. But Priscilla wouldn't stop, not now.

"Here's something for you to think about, Preston," she continued. "I know it gags you to admit that you may, at some point in your immaculate and flawless life, have ever done something wrong or said something unkind. But it wasn't Pacifica who decided to run for the Senate. It wasn't Pacifica who decided that every little speck of insignificant dust in the family tree needed to be safeguarded. It wasn't Pacifica who sent your bald goon to steal it and hurt a bunch of people who didn't even know what they were being hurt for. It wasn't Pacifica's fault that you swindled Mack Dirksen and everyone else out of that money. And how dare  **you**  blame your daughter for your misdeeds."

Her words were harsh, strong, accusatory, but her tone was still quavering and uncertain. She felt on the verge of fainting. All Preston had to do was push back, just the tiniest bit, and she would probably collapse. But he didn't say a word, listening curiously, as if hearing a strange anecdote that had no bearing on him personally. Which made it hurt, all the more - that their marriage was ending and  _he didn't even care_  - but also, at the same time, made it easier for her.

"So, I am leaving. Tonight. I'm going to call a cab. I'm not telling you where I'm going. I'm certainly not going to give you a way to reach me. You can send Pierre or some goon to collect me and I'll have the police arrest them."

She fixed him with a look of pure hate that she'd never shown anyone before, at least not since she was a little girl scolding her mother. Then she twisted the knife.

"I'm not afraid of you any more, Preston."

She walked back upstairs, hoping the time would allow her husband to absorb what she'd said and maybe, just maybe, show some real emotion. Some concern that their family was dying. Even if it was a towering explosion of rage, that would at least be a  **reaction**.

What struck her too is that, despite her worry, she wasn't having any regret about it. It felt like something that had been a long time coming. Which it really had. Since, at the very least, he sabotaged her tennis tournament eight years ago. That was the moment when she should have walked out on him, but didn't...Probably for Pacifica's sake.

Despite that, when she reemerged with her suitcases, Preston barely reacted. He was still standing in the hallway, staring at the wall, either lost in thought or pointedly ignoring his wife. Or both.

"I'm leaving, Preston," she said. "I'll call a cab."

"Nothing I can do to change your mind?" he asked. More perfunctorily than pleading, Priscilla thought.

"Become a different person," she said quietly. Almost hopefully, as if she thought that were still possible.

"Be it on your head," Preston said darkly. "Be it on your head that  **you**  destroyed this family."

And then Priscilla realized that, no matter what she might say or hope or wish, Preston would always be the same.

"Goodbye, Preston," she said, walking out the door. Leaving her husband alone in his mansion, alone in his misery and anger.

* * *

"So wait, back up. I'm totally lost here. Was the Foxfire some kind of spirit, or...?"

"Dip, I told you,  _I don't know_. All I know is what I told you. It showed me what the future would have been like if...if we'd stayed together."

Pacifica choked out the words. She watched for Dipper's reaction; he furrowed his mouth, unsure how to react.

"I take it, then..." he said slowly, not looking at her. "That it wasn't good?"

Pacifica shook her head. Dipper sighed, and she felt guilty.

"It was a nightmare," she said sadly. "I made you into the worst possible version of yourself you could be. And I...I never really changed, I guess. I just became the snooty rich bitch you and Mabel knew and hated back when we first met. Only, like, ten times worse."

"Huh." Dipper didn't know what to say to that.

"Guess I have that effect on people," Pacifica said sadly.

"Pacifica..." Dipper wanted to help her feel better, but tripped over his words.

"I don't know. Mirror-Me told me that the whole experience made me better. And maybe it did! Maybe I grew into a more accepting, more tolerant, less bitchy person over the past two years. But I'm not a happy one. Not happy at all."

Dipper nodded along, waiting to see where she went with this.

"And that's the crazy thing!" Pacifica laughed. "The me I saw and heard in those visions would have  **loved**  the New and Ruined Dipper. They were probably  _perfect_  for each other! And Alternate Pacifica would have lived a happy, shallow life because she didn't know anything better. But Dipper would have been  _much_  worse. You're still the most awesome person I've ever met."

She put a hand on his shoulder and smiled wistfully. Then she added:

"I don't deserve you."

"Now hold up, Pacifica," Dipper said. "That's not true."

"Isn't it?" Pacifica squirmed with agony, not  _wanting_  to drag a complement out of him, yet needing  **some**  kind of reinforcement. Dipper seemed reluctant to oblige her, trying to make sure that whatever he said was sincere rather than mere ego-stroking.

"It's not that you don't deserve me," he said finally. "Whatever happened two years ago...whatever  _would_  have happened...whatever you saw...That is  **not**  true. You've spent your whole life fighting against the worst things your parents threw at you. And you haven't always overcome them, haven't always been the best person, but...That's because no one's perfect. Not one person on Earth! Just the fact that you want to be better than Preston and Priscilla means a lot. And I'd say, based on what I've seen from you this summer, you're succeeding."

Pacifica did feel genuinely better after that.

"Just because we're not together doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you," Dipper continued. "I mean sure, we were an  _awful_  couple. We fought and bickered over the stupidest things. The only time we ever clicked was on missions together. And, no offense Pacifica, but as much as I liked you, there's no way I could ever have stood your Dad - whatever that Foxfire told you."

Pacifica laughed. "Yeah, I noticed that Mirror-Me didn't say that what I saw was, like, definite, concrete fact."

"You'll find somebody who's a better fit for you some day," Dipper assured her, clasping her hands with a warmth that made Pacifica shiver with delight. "I'm sorry it's not me, but...I know they're out there. And, trust me, they'll be the luckiest person in the world when they meet you."

Pacifica smiled, delighted for a moment at Dippr's words. Then she looked down again at their hands caressed together, and the shiver returned. And she pulled away, startling him.

She'd hoped that she could just enjoy the moment, enjoy Dipper's kind words and comfort. But she knew that there were still things between him and her that needed to be cleared up.

So she sighed, and closed her eyes, steeling herself for a conversation she'd been dreading all weekend.

"Dipper..." she began. "I have to tell you something."


	15. Chapter 15

Dipper didn't like the sound of Pacifica's question. Mostly because he more or less knew what was coming. He dreaded it, not so much for what Pacifica might say, but for what  **he**  would say in response.

"What...did you want to talk about?" he began hesitantly.

Pacifica looked so miserable when she said it. Even more than she usually had lately.

"Dipper...I don't know how to tell you this. I know I said it was no big deal hanging out with you, but...I have to say something. I still have feelings for you."

"Oh." Dipper nodded, fidgeting awkwardly as he absorbed her words.

"I mean, it's been two years since we dated, and  _that_  didn't really work. And I know you're with Wendy now, and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that. It's just...how can you completely forget how you feel about someone? How can it ever go away entirely?"

Dipper didn't have answer, so he silently encouraged her to continue.

"Is that crazy?" she asked. "Is it wrong that I still have feelings for you? I mean, it's so hard to just pretend nothing ever happened. But I know I should have moved on...I mean, isn't that what this whole mess is  **about**?"

Dipper remembered that he'd asked himself that question -  _is that crazy?_  - when he first started wrestling with his feelings towards Wendy, all those years ago. Though they weren't exes at the time.

Wendy had let him down as gently as she possibly could, while affirming their friendship. And it was a beautiful memory, even if it felt awful at the time. And the fact that they  _had_  eventually gotten together complicated whatever lessons he might draw from it.

"Like, I still want to be your friend. And Mabel's friend, too. More than anything in the world. Because you're the two most awesome people I've ever met. But I don't want..." She gestured between her and Dipper. "I don't want this to make things awkward. I don't want to think about why we're not together every time that we hang out. And I don't want you to feel uncomfortable."

Her comments  **did**  make Dipper comfortable. He was usually the one making these confidences, not receiving them. Wendy would probably put it down to his being  _a guy_ , like she did most things she found annoying in him and everyone else, but it was more that he was awkward and unsure of his own feelings, and how could he help anyone else with theirs?

Still, he needed to be a friend. He just hoped he wouldn't screw this up.

"Pacifica...I would be lying if I said it wasn't awkward. And I would be lying if I said...if I said that I didn't still have feelings for you, too. Because you're right. These things don't go away. Not completely. No matter how much you try to hide them or fight them. Especially since you were my first real girlfriend."

"What, did you date one of those dating sims like Soos?" Pacifica teased.

Dipper was too tensed up to enjoy the joke. "I mean, I had a crush on Wendy for  **six years**  before we got together, even though I kept trying to convince myself that it was nothing, that she didn't feel the same way."

"Bad example," Pacifica complained. "I mean, look how  _that_  turned out."

"Umm, I guess you're right," Dipper admitted. "But...even before Wendy reciprocated, she never made me feel bad about having feelings for her. She liked me as a friend for the longest time. And I loved that, almost as much as dating. It hurt, it was hard to deal with, but it was worth it."

He sensed from Pacifica's skeptical glance that he was going down the wrong road. So he sighed, and switched gears.

"What I'm  **trying**  to say, is that it's okay with me. It might be awkward, it probably  _will_  be, but...I mean, I'm used to being awkward. That's just who I am. Me and Mabel and Wendy and everyone. That won't change one thing."

"What's that?" Pacifica asked.

"That you've become a wonderful person," Dipper said. "You aren't perfect, like I said, like you know. You _definitely_  aren't perfect. But you're trying. Every day you get up and say to yourself, how can I be a better Pacifica than I was yesterday?"

Pacifica snorted. Because most mornings lately, she woke up wondering why she should bother getting out of bed at all.

"And I want to help, as best I can. But more important is...You're someone I want in my life. As a friend. Because...you're you. Because you deserve to be loved. You deserve to have friends."

Pacifica couldn't help it. She clasped his right hand with hers and kissed him on the forehead.

"Mason Pines, you  _never_  know what to say," she teased. "Not in all the years I've known you. What changed?"

Dipper couldn't answer her question. "Well, whatever happens with you and your parents, you'll have at least one friend."

"And I  _couldn't_  get someone less lame?" she said, hugging him and laughing. And this time, Dipper laughed too. And returned the hug.

"Thanks, Dipper," she said, brushing the hair out of her eyes. "It means a lot that you'd say that. I mean, I'd much rather be your friend than your girlfriend."

"It's probably best," Dipper agreed. "Especially if Wendy gets suspicious."

Pacifica sighed happily, looking thoughtfully at the floor of the Shack.

"You know, when I was going through the Foxfire and saw all the changes, my first thought - and, I guess, my second and third and fourth  _and fifth_  thoughts - were that this whole thing was a punishment. That I had to suffer, that I had to be alone for everyone else to be happy. And that didn't seem fair at all. And I didn't want to be, like, a supporting player in somebody else's drama. And  _that_  made me more mad than sad, I guess."

"That's a step in the right direction," Dipper said.

"But then I thought...I mean, I guess it was easy to _think_  it when that Familiar told me, but...It wasn't that. It was that one moment of happiness in the past isn't the key to my whole future. That I have to find my own way to being happy. Even if it is being single forever."

"Like I said, I can't imagine you'd have problems finding a boyfriend, being you," Dipper said. "Maybe, like, right now's not the best time because of your family situation. But give it time. People will forgive or forget. They'll know you didn't have anything to do with it. And people we know will know that you helped us."

"You're more optimistic than I am," Pacifica admitted. "But I guess you're right. I mean, if nothing else I haven't lost my looks!"

"Or your vanity!" Dipper teased.

"Or my hair!" Pacifica replied.

"Or your brown roots," Dipper joked.

"Now you've done it!" Pacifica said, punching him on the shoulder as hard she could. "Now we can never be friends again!"

"Oww! Sorry."

"Seriously Dip, I don't mind a little teasing, but that joke was old  _years_  ago. You know this is my real hair color, right?"

"Sorry. I mean, I guess so..."

"If it were fake, you would know it!"

"Guess it's just weird...I mean, both of your parents have brown hair..."

"I'm not gonna dissect the genetics of hereditary hair color. That's more your department."

"Got me there."

And the two of them sat for a moment, quietly enjoying each other's company. Then Pacifica received a text. She hesitated and pulled the phone from her pocket. Then smiled as she read the message:

**PACIFICA - LEFT YOUR FATHER. STAYING AT HOTEL IN EUGENE. SORRY I WASN'T STRONGER - COULDN'T FIGHT ANYMORE. HOPE YOU'RE OKAY. LOVE, MOM.**

And Pacifica's heart broke, both sad for, and proud of her mother at the same time. She wasted no time in typing a response.

**GOD BLESS YOU MOM - PLEASE CALL ME LATER. YOU DID THE RIGHT THING. AND YOU ARE STRONG!**

She prepared to send. Then she remembered what Dipper told her a moment ago, and added:

**YOU DESERVE TO BE HAPPY. LOVE, PAZ.**

"What's  _that_  about?" Dipper asked.

"Guess my mom wants to be a better person, too," Pacifica said proudly. For two Northwests, at least, there appeared to be a silver lining at last.

* * *

"Wendy, does your building really have an apartment open in the middle of the summer?" Dipper couldn't believe it.

"Yeah man, it's a two bedroom one, too!" Wendy said over her cellphone. "The renters moved to Seattle or something, so it's a sudden vacancy. The only catch is, it's $900 a month."

"That's...pretty steep for Gravity Falls," Dipper agreed.

"Yeah, but I figure Miss Moneybags can probably foot the bill."

Mostly, Dipper was relieved that her girlfriend was taking this with such aplomb. He still hadn't told her all the details of what went down that weekend - and some conversations, he figured, would remain in confidence as long as Pacifica wanted them to - but enough that Wendy immediately sympathized. Whatever she felt about Pacifica, and Dipper could guess, she wasn't going to let someone in need stay in need, if she could help it.

"Anyway, I'll talk to my landlord and see if I can set something up," Wendy continued. "Usually they only show rooms on Sundays, but you never know..."

"Hey Wendy...do you think they'd be okay with Pacifica's mom coming, too?"

Beat.

"I don't see why not," Wendy said evenly. "Might be a little more every month, but..."

"Yeah, I guess that's a concern," Dipper admitted. "Mostly, the money thing bothers me. Because I don't know if Pacifica's dad controls their bank accounts, or whatever."

"If they were smart she would have withdrawn money or set up a different account."

"Maybe, but this doesn't seem like it was planned much. Just things reached a boiling point."

"Hmm."

"So how was your weekend, Wendy?"

"Pretty rad! Me, Robbie and Tambry went to a concert - Wood Grain on Everything is having a reunion tour! Like their music a lot more than I did when we were younger, I guess. They seemed much more my speed now."

"Well, they're no Mellencamp," Dipper said.

"Dude,  **nobody** 's Mellencamp," Wendy corrected him. "But they were all right."

"Well, good. I hope they're doing okay."

"Yeah. I'm amazed they're still together, to be honest, but they seem like, perfect for each other. Even more than they did when they were teens. Robbie is really into a music studies program at school. Thought he'd be one of those guys who only played a guitar to get chicks, but he's taking it pretty serious, it sounds like. And Tambry, well, she's still debating her major, but I guess she still has a year to decide."

"Didn't she want to be a nurse or something?"

"Nurse, accountant, lawyer, software designer. Changes every week, man."

"Classic Tambers." Beat. "Umm, am I allowed to say that?"

"To me, sure. In front of her...watch your back."

"Noted. So are we going to see each other tonight?"

"I dunno, man. I hope so. Maybe a late dinner...have to see when I get back in town. If not, tomorrow, for sure."

"Good, I'm looking forward to it. Whenever is fine." Pause.

"Umm, Wendy?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry about...how I acted on Friday."

"No worries, Dip. You already apologized. Like, six times."

"I know, but I was a jerk. And I'm sorry about...the Pacifica situation."

"Hey, you guys didn't do anything in the woods...did you?"

"No! I mean, of course not..."

"Just hanging out with some big green balls."

"...Wow."

"Ha ha, got ya!"

"When you put it like  **that**..."

"Hey man, Pacifica's all right. She's not her dad, anyway. And good for her Mom if she wants to make a clean break. Can you imagine being married to Preston Northwest?"

"I have a small idea. I used to date his daughter, you know..."

"Ugh,  _why_?"

"It's complicated."

"Nerd stuff?"

"Really, it's more guy stuff."

"Ah." Beat. "Well, I mean, it's okay if you two hang out. I mean, after my spiel the other night I'd be kinda hypocritical if I had a problem with it."

"Yeah, I guess so..."

"Although, if you think about it, you hung out with one of your exes while I was away...after you made a big deal about me doing it."

"I said I was sorry."

"Not for **that** , dork!"

"Can't I do a blanket apology?"

"*sigh* I guess. Dork, I absolve you of your sins. For now. This time."

Pause.

"Well man, I'm gonna get going for now. I'll talk with my landlord if I get a chance, see what they say about the room. Hopefully I can make time for you tonight."

"Great!"

"If not, like I said..."

"We'll do something tomorrow."

"If Stan lets you out of work."

"Well, maybe he will, maybe he won't. He's been very...erratic lately."

"Either way, keep me posted, okay?"

"Sure thing. And you, too."

"Thanks, Dip. Love ya."

"Love you."

Dipper stared at the phone for a moment before putting it away.

"That could have gone worse, I guess," he said, reentering the room with Pacifica.

"What's up, Dipper? Wendy okay?"

And she felt a stab of warmth as a huge grin slipped across Dipper's face.

"I think we might have a solution to your most pressing problem."

* * *

She had signed in at the hotel as Priscilla Connolly, the first time she'd used her maiden name in twenty years. The clerk probably recognized her, but was discreet enough not to say anything. She had grabbed a sandwich from the hotel bar for lunch, eaten it quickly before the curious hotel guests could recognize her, and now spent the afternoon languishing in the hotel, trying to think of her next move.

She tried to think about her mom, who still lived Corvallis, but who was looking for an assisted living home last time she'd spoken with her. Dad had been dead for years. Her brother had moved out to Norfolk, Virginia to work for a government contractor; they hadn't spoken much in years, and Priscilla didn't figure he'd take her in. Surely she had enough money right now to buy or rent a small place, but where?

She wasn't too worried, right this moment, about her next big step. The resurrection of Priscilla Connolly, if you will. A future career, a way to rebuild her life and reputation separate from Preston. Mostly she was thinking about where to go that Preston couldn't follow her.

She was terrified. Even with all that had happened, Preston still had money, still had friends in high places who could do bad things. She thought about detectives harassing her or her daughter, police investigating long-forgotten misdemeanors, the press full of stories about her drinking problems and her drug use and depression. And she remembered Mr. Questadt, and shuddered to think what might happen if someone like  _him_  appeared.

She received Pacifica's text, and it gave her a moment of happiness. At least she was safe. That was enough for right now.

Then she saw an email. From Preston. And her heart sank.

Her first instinct was to delete it. Her second was that it was a threat or a letter of divorce, or yet another oblivious email pretending everything was still okay, somehow. Which might be worse.

To her surprise, it was something she would never have expected from Preston...at least, not the Preston she'd come to know and loathe.

_Priscilla,_

_I am sorry that you decided to leave our family. I have given it some thought and I think it's probably best. You are a wonderful woman and you deserve to be happy. I'm sorry that I can't give you that happiness, though Lord knows that I've tried over the years._

_Some marriages last forever. Some marriages are a mistake and the partners only realize it, too late. Perhaps ours was the latter. I never stopped to think about it, but being alone in the mansion does wonders for one's clarity of mind. We can leave the details to the lawyers later._

_I will deposit $10,000 in your personal bank account tomorrow to ensure that you have enough money to take care of yourself. Please let me know if you need more. I don't see how we can remain friends, but I do wish you success and happiness in the future._

_Regards,_

_Preston Northwest_

She read the message with tears in her eyes, at first sad and remorseful, than incredulous and angry. If her husband could be that direct  _now_ , after their marriage had effectively ended, why couldn't he have been just a few hours ago?

She also noticed that he said nothing about Pacifica - perhaps he considered her one of those "details" that should be left to the lawyers - that would be so like him! Certainly the formal "regards" was about what she expected.

Other than that, though, she could find no fault in the message. Except that he'd waited until now to write it.

Still, at the very least, she knew that she'd have a chance at happiness and security. At being her own woman again. And she laid back on the bed and sighed with satisfaction.

If nothing else, she was free.


	16. Chapter 16

Pacifica knew, just from browsing around the internet, that word of her parents separating had already leaked to the press (must have been a servant, she thought, maybe even Pierre), and she expected some attempt to contact her or get her to comment. So, that Sunday evening, once Mabel had returned home and everything had settled down a bit, she decided to blog her own statement, as she'd done before.

It was a simple, sparse post featuring three pictures, each with a few lines of explanatory text. The first, taken by Wendy that evening, showed Pacifica standing in between Dipper and Mabel, with a bigger, more joyful smile than she'd ever seen on her own face. Beneath it, she wrote:

_These are my best friends. They don't care my life is a mess and that I'm a handful. They love me for who I am._

Then, the picture of her as a shy ten year old with Priscilla, dressed in full tennis gear. And the comment:

_This is my mother. Today she made the toughest decision of her life, and I couldn't be more proud. She loves me and I love her._

And then a picture of herself at age 17, posing wistfully for a senior photo, head turned over her left shoulder, sadness showing in her eyes despite a reluctant smile:

_This is me. I am not perfect. I am my father's daughter. But I am also not my father. Nor my mother. I am Pacifica Elyse Northwest. Deal with it._

Being Pacifica, she couldn't help adding that last bit of defiant snark. But it seemed appropriate.

Within a few minutes of posting it, she received a text message from a Salem friend she hadn't talked to since the unpleasantness began:

**_Paz - I am so sorry about your mom and dad. All your friends are here if you need us. - Betty_ **

Just moments later, another came from another friend:

**_Pacifica - Forensics buds stick together through everything. You are brave and strong and we all love you. - Jack_ **

Even someone she didn't really like, whom she considered a frenemy at best and an archnemsis at worst, chimed in:

**_You are so brave. Thank you for speaking out. we luv u. - Sarah C._ **

And then, a text that meant more to her than any others:

**_Pacifica - Thank you so much. Glad we could talk. Love, Mom._ **

She settled down in her cot in the Shack, in a spare room next to Dipper and Mabel's, listening to the siblings catch up about their exciting weekends. She could have sworn she heard Mabel deploying her grappling hook and breaking a window. She  _knew_  she heard Stan Pines cursing at them from somewhere inside the Shack.

And then, as she turned the light out in her room, she saw a faint glow outside. Curious, she opened the window and looked out. She saw, rising faintly above the treeline, a small orange-and-green blob. The Foxfire had emerged from the woods, as if checking up on her.

 _Thank you_ , she thought, smiling.  _Whoever or whatever you are, you saved me._

She watched the Foxfire for a long moment until it finally floated up past the Moon and vanished. The sight made Pacifica sad and melancholy, as if she'd seen a friend for the last time. But it also infused her with purpose and a thought that everything would be okay.

Right now, there were so many things that she wanted to do. So many ways to make a fresh start and set things right. But first, she needed to sleep.

As she laid her head down in her pillow, she briefly thought she heard the humming and whispering noise from before. But it was just Stan turning on an air conditioner and slamming it with his fist. She felt a little disappointed, and settled beneath her covers.

The last thing she heard, before falling asleep, was the Twins laughing.

**THE END**


End file.
